New facility makes progress
During the Monday morning board of supervisors meeting, William Kimble, chairman of the Lincoln Civic Center Commission, gave an annual update to the Lincoln County Board Of Supervisors.
Kimble discussed the completion of a NRCS and Soil and Water erosion control grant that was recently completed and the opening of bids Wednesday afternoon to begin work on extending the arena and other projects associated with the arena and stall barn area. The $100,000 project is a 50/50 partnership with Pearl River Development District and the Lincoln Civic Center.
Kimble also discussed the upcoming baseball park plans and stated that after further review with the planning committee and county engineer the orginal entrance posed some problems. The original entrance had a cost of $285,000 and would create an exit off of Beltline just pass the sharp curve. It was determined that the planned location could be a safety issue.
It was determined a shared entrance using Hansel King access road would be more responsible with tax dollars and would save the project $166,000. The leftover money would then be used toward the park.
Kimble added if a shared entrance were used, the undeveloped land between the two complexes would be improved and a walkway could be put in place to connect the two facilities.
They asserted that this improvement would show the citizens of Lincoln County, Brookhaven City and visitors that they all have the same vision and direction for this complex.
Therefore, a formal request to share the access road will be sent to the Mayor of Brookhaven to be passed on to the Board of Alderman at Tuesday night’s board meeting.
Board of Supervisors President Eddie Brown stated he would hope the mayor and city alderman would consider these cost savings and find a way that would benefit all the citizens of Lincoln County and the City of Brookhaven.
Lincoln County Engineer Ryan Holmes said the current plan to advertise phase one of the project, which is the “dirt work and connecting of the two facilities” portion of this project should be started by the middle of January with phase two “construction phase” to follow directly behind phase one.
The baseball complex is expected to host the first tournament in late fall of 2015 upon completion.
Jordan added the success of the recent Lincoln County Wildlife Expo and reported that the last expo was the largest to date.
In other business, Dustin Bairfield, Lincoln County Circuit Clerk, proposed to move the voting precinct of Bogue Chitto from the gymnasium to the Bogue Chitto Volunteer Fire Department.
Bairfield said the process of voting in the gym became confusing to voters when the attendance center constructed their new gymnasium. He added the new location, with proper advertisement, would ensure voters less confusion on where to vote.
Bairfield proposed mailing out cards to voters in the precinct as well as placing signs at both the new and old locations informing people of the recent change on election days.
The board passed the proposition under the condition that the voters in the precinct of Bogue Chitto would be well aware of the changes.