In a specially called meeting Wednesday afternoon, the Brookhaven Board of Aldermen approved the county’s request to use Hansel King Road as a temporary entrance to the proposed new baseball facility.

Hansel King Road is currently property of the Brookhaven Recreation Department and serves as the entrance to Hansel King Sportsplex. The request stemmed from Lincoln County’s new baseball facility project.

The baseball facility will be built on land adjacent to the Sportsplex. The entrance to the fields has posed a problem during the planning stages. Currently a stream runs through the property. The county would like to restore and rehabilitate the stream, which requires a permit from the Mississippi Corps of Engineers. The county would need a second permit to build a bridge over the revamped stream.

The county has set a goal to be able to use the facility by the 2016 season. The time constraint would not allow both permits to be processed and completed.

The solution has been to build a road connecting the baseball facility to Hansel King Road. The board of aldermen and the BRD commission have voiced traffic concerns with this idea, though.

“The complex is the biggest thing that draws people into the city,” Terry Reid, BRD director, said.

He said he has no concerns with the baseball facility, but he does not want it to affect the Sportsplex.

After much debate, the city’s aldermen came up with a solution to allow the city and BRD retain control of the environment surrounding the Sportsplex. The city will grant a temporary construction easement so that the county can make grading improvements between the two facilities. The county will be responsible for these costs.

In the original proposal, the county offered to split the costs of upgrading Hansel King Road and Hansel King Loop, which circles the Sportsplex softball fields. The cost to both the city and the county would be $90,905. Instead the city proposed that the county spend their $90,905 on Hansel King Road and the city would pay up to $15,000 on these improvements. The city would then upgrade Hansel King Loop in house at a later date.

The upgrades to Hansel King Road include expanding to four lanes between Belt Line and the turn off for the baseball facility. One of the entrance lanes will be dedicated to the baseball fields, and the other will be dedicated to the softball and soccer fields.

According to the revised proposal, the county must commit to the construction of an entrance/exit road that will be included in the construction contract of the overall baseball facility. Until the new road is constructed the Lincoln Civic Center will have to send a written request for any event outside of the regular baseball season to prevent instances in which both complexes host tournaments at the same time.

Finally, the city will require the county to provide security to help with traffic during times when events are occurring at both places. The board said security should be off-duty officers from the Brookhaven Police Department or the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.

The board will send the revised proposal back to the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors. Tillmon Bishop said if he receives the agreement from the city in time, he will present it at the next Supervisor’s meeting.

As of early Thursday morning, he had not received the revised agreement, so he could not give a firm timeline. However, he added that it will have top priority once it comes to his office.

The next supervisors meeting will be Monday at 9 a.m.