Lincoln County supervisors have repeatedly said that the new baseball complex will be open to all children – black and white. But some in the community are worried that won’t be the case.

“To me, our community feels that we have been left out of the process,” Roy Smith told supervisors this week. “Because, being the director of the A. L. Lott Youth League Baseball program, I have 400 youth in our program. And I’ve not had one person [who has] contacted me or talked to me about unifying the league, or incorporating [the league], or what impact this may have on our league, on their league [or] on this facility as a whole.”

He has brought his concerns to supervisors repeatedly, and he also approached the Brookhaven Board of Aldermen with his message.

Smith has made it clear that he is not speaking for the entire black community but representing what some in the community brought forth during an earlier community meeting.

While supervisors have tried to address Smith’s concerns, it’s clear their answers haven’t satisfied him. They will get another opportunity to address those concerns Thursday at the Lincoln County Civic Center.  Supervisors were invited by Lincoln County NAACP  to attend a 6 p.m. meeting to address concerns and answer questions about the new complex.

Hopefully, supervisors will see the wisdom in openly engaging the public on the issue. Clearly, the concerns of some in the black community are substantial enough that they organized the meeting. Showing up and openly answering their questions will go a long way toward showing the public that the county is and will continue to be transparent as work on the complex moves forward.  Hopefully, any public official connected to this project will attend. We also hope the public uses this as an opportunity to engage their government officials respectfully, and not simply an opportunity to attack them.