STARKVILLE — The board of aldermen is considering spending COVID-19 relief dollars to further expand Cornerstone Park.

Starkville received nearly $3.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds in August 2021 and will receive $3.2 million more by December 2022, totalling $6.4 million in COVID-19 aid. ARPA funds are allocated to municipalities and local governments that were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Board attorney Chris Latimer said these funds must be spent on specific areas.

One of the potential uses of ARPA funds is tourism. To find the best use of this aid, Mayor Lynn Spruill worked with Latimer to create a plan that would largely benefit Starkville Parks and Recreation Department. Along with spending $2 million on two additional fields at Cornerstone Park, renovations would be made to J. L. King, McKee, Patriots, George Evans, Moncrief and Josey Parks and the Starkville Sportsplex.

“I think this money is best spent as broadly as possible, and to me, that’s creating opportunities to help our park areas,” Spruill said during a special-call city council meeting Thursday to discuss ARPA. “… That is part of tourism, and that is part of what Mr. Latimer has spent time on.”

All fund usage must be determined by Dec. 31, 2024 and the money spent by Dec. 31, 2026.

Cornerstone Park, located on Highway 25, will be a baseball and softball-focused recreation facility with an emphasis on hosting tournaments. The $22 million project is funded through a 1-percent sales tax on restaurants and hotels, which began in August 2019. Cornerstone is still under construction.

Hiring two new police officers to the Starkville Police Department is also in the ARPA plan Spruill and Latimer laid out Thursday. The cost of this would be $150,000 per year until 2026. The city must work their salaries into the yearly budget after that.

Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk agreed with Spruill on wanting to expand Cornerstone and improve other city parks. She said she believes large funding such as this for park improvements will not come again and now is the time to revamp Starkville parks.

“Beyond Cornerstone, we are going to have a difficult time funding $2-6 million in additional park improvements over time (to the other parks),” Sistrunk said. “I know J.L. King has needs from lights at the football field to a bathroom. Patriots Park needs a bathroom. … Josey Park could use a little improvement. The Needmore Center outlived its usefulness years ago and needs to be replaced.”

Ward 4 Alderman Mike Brooks, Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins, who represents Ward 6, and Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn all said they would like to see renovations made to the parks in their wards.

Sewer improvements discussed
While most aldermen said they want to improve parks, Ward 5 Alderman Hamp Beatty heavily lobbied for the funds to be spent elsewhere, specifically on improving the city’s water and sewer systems.

Several of Beatty’s constituents spoke at the board’s regular meeting Sept. 7, citing monthly-recurring instances of brown water in their households. Beatty said he believes the best use of the funds would be to construct new water lines throughout the city, especially in places that have older lines.

“We’re spending $25 million on a ballpark right now, and we’re going to have a Cadillac ballpark,” Beatty said. “To me, we’re not being fully responsive. … We have 100-year-old water and sewer lines that are starting to give us problems in places like North Gate (neighborhood) where we have brown water problems and sewer problems.”

While the board acknowledged that brown water is a problem in the city, no one agreed that the ARPA funds should be used to redo water lines. Spruill said the city has a downtown road improvement plan over the next few years, and water and sewer lines could be added into that plan.

“I think using ARPA money for something we would be doing anyway is not the use of the ARPA,” Spruill said. “I think we should use the ARPA money for things that we’re not going to be doing, for things we don’t have plans to do and certainly can’t afford at this time, but water improvements and sewer improvements are in the plan.”

Beatty also said the funds could be used to help Starkville residents struggling with paying rent or who have been evicted from their homes, such as residents from the apartments on Catherine Street, because one use of ARPA funds is the prevention of homelessness.

“This goes right to the heart of what happened to these people last week when they were evicted from the property,” Beatty said.

Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver said he supports funding park improvements, especially Patriots Park which falls in his ward, but agreed with Beatty that homelessness has increased within Starkville since the pandemic began and would like to see a homeless shelter built in the city.

“If you’re going to really reach out to this community, and you say, ‘What did COVID do to Starkville?’” Carver said. “… What do we as Starkville citizens see changed here? I saw an increase in homelessness.”

The board will vote on approval of the funds at Tuesday’s regular board meeting.