As Lowndes County moves forward with plans to issue up to $7.75 million in bonds, Supervisor Jeff Smith continues to push for part of the bond money to be used in the Crawford area.
County supervisors Thursday passed a resolution of intent to issue the general-obligation bonds to finance a soccer complex for the Burns Bottom area ($3.25 million), renovation of the Lowndes County Courthouse ($1 million) and construction of a new Justice Court complex ($2.5 million). Another $1 million will be used to pay off the balance on bonds issued for the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center.
Smith urged his fellow supervisors to include funds to West Lowndes communities in plans for the bond issue.
“My concern is this … we got some areas that are still being excluded (from recreation plans). Here we have an opportunity to include these areas without additional cost,” said Smith, supervisor for District 4. “Here”s the opportunity to at least sit down and before we finalize this, to add these areas to the cost.”
At a previous meeting, District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks suggested giving Crawford and Artesia at least $50,000 each for recreation and other quality-of-life projects. Artesia is in Brooks” district; Crawford is in Smith”s district.
Supervisors unanimously passed the bond-issue resolution; no action was taken on funding recreation projects to Crawford and Artesia as part of the bond issue.
After the meeting, Smith noted, “We”re putting emphasis on all the areas of Lowndes County except that area.”
While the county pours money into the industrial park west of the river, no money is spent on the West Lowndes communities” quality of life, said Smith.
“The facilities are inept, and it is an embarrassment to a county as rich as Lowndes County to have those communities in that shape,” he said, noting these major financial decisions need to be made now. “In six months, we are going to be a lame duck board.”
The county previously approved jointly funding, along with the city of Columbus, a $1.6 million neighborhood parks project proposed by the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority.
Improvements are planned for community centers in Sim Scott Park, Townsend Park, New Hope and Anderson Grove, as well as renovations to East Columbus Gym and a basketball pavilion at Townsend Park.
“They chose to do their (improvements) in the city,” District 1 Supervisor and Board President Harry Sanders said this morning, of Smith and Brooks.
Plans for the bond-issue money, earmarked for separate and specific projects, have remained the same “from the beginning, and now, after the fact, to try to sabotage it,” Sanders said.
“There”s budget restraints pushing this wagon here, and you just can”t outspend your budget,” he said, noting about $80,000 a year is spent through the CLRA on community centers in Crawford and Artesia.
“District 2, District 1, District 3, out in the county, have zero facilities at all, so I don”t know what the beef is,” Sanders added.
Additionally, a new park opened in District 4”s Concord community in June, complete with swing sets, a basketball court, jungle gym, pavilion, walking track and volleyball pit. And the county is building a park in the Plum Grove community, where a baseball field will be named in honor of Crawford native and major league baseball pioneer Sam Hairston.
Bids for community centers, which are part of the neighborhood parks plan, have come in higher than anticipated, so the county is in the process of rebidding those projects.
“We”ve explained that this plan now, if there”s any money left, we will try to do something in (Crawford and Artesia),” said Sanders, who noted Smith and Brooks are trying to lump the neighborhood parks plan and the bond-issue projects together.
A Crawford community member attended the supervisors meeting to appeal to the board about recreation projects. But she did not appear before the board since she was not on the agenda, another sore spot for Smith, though she previously had been referred to the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority.
“When someone, as a taxpayer of this county, suggests they want to address this board, we ought to be open to receiving them,” Smith said.
“It doesn”t cost a thing for us to listen,” he later added.
A public hearing on the bond issue is slated for Nov. 1 at 9 a.m. in the supervisors” boardroom at the Lowndes County Courthouse on Second Avenue North.
The county would have two years from Nov. 1 to issue the bonds.
With interest rates low, the bond issue can be paid for without increasing taxes, reported Steve Edds, an attorney of Baker Donelson Law Firm in Jackson, who concentrates in government finance and debt restructuring.
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