Meeting with two members of the Warren County legislative delegation, Mayor Paul Winfield said this morning that the City Board will vote Wednesday on seeking state approval to borrow nearly $20 million for a proposed recreation complex.

“We’re estimating this is an $18 million to $19 million facility,” Winfield said as he and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield met with Sen. Briggs Hopson III and Rep. Alex Monsour. “We may have to use some city funds with this, but we can stretch the loan payments.

“If we see this is going to pass, we can take out an option to buy the property and then we can take out a short-term note to buy the property,” he said.

Winfield has declined to identify the location, but said after this morning’s meeting that it is a “very visible” site on U.S. 61 North.

Mayfield said he has seen the property Winfield has selected.

“I don’t think you will find a better location,” he said. “The only problem I’ve got with it is the topo (topography), but it’s hard to find a place around here that’s going to be ready, set, go.”

Mayfield said he is looking at two other tracts of land in the same area. He said both were about 200 acres. Winfield said he, too, is looking at other sites.

Legislators are expected to seek approval in both houses of a bill to allow the city to raise the hotel tax and add a food and beverage tax to fund the purchase and development of property for the complex.

The bill was to have been discussed at Monday’s meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, but Winfield postponed action until Wednesday pending today’s meeting with the local delegation.

South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman was ill and did not attend the meetings.

Winfield has proposed building a sports complex with baseball, softball and soccer fields and a walking/running track.

He wants to borrow up to $20 million for the project and pay it off using revenue from a 2 percent increase in the city’s hotel tax and 1.5 percent tax on food and beverages sold in the city. He has projected the new taxes will yield about $1.2 million annually, enough to pay off an $18.5 million to $19 million loan in 15 years.

He has called a special board meeting for 10 a.m. Wednesday to approve a resolution to send the bill to the Legislature.

Vicksburg currently levies a 2 percent hotel tax, which funds the Vicksburg Convention Center and auditorium. A 1 percent tax is levied on all beds and food and beverages sold in the county to fund the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The proposed bill would increase the city’s hotel tax to 4 percent, and set a 1.5 percent city tax on food and beverages sold in the city. It would have a “sunset clause,” meaning that the tax expires once the debt is paid.

If the bill passes the Legislature, the tax must be put to a referendum in November, and 60 percent of the voters must approve it before it can be levied.

Hopson said he has been getting calls about Winfield’s proposal, saying that while the sports complex has many supporters, it has opponents who do not want to pay extra tax to support it.

“How are you going to sell it to the people?” he asked Winfield. “If you’re going to get support for borrowing $20 million, you’re going to have to deal with specifics.”

Winfield said the specifics would come during the campaign to get support for the referendum. “I believe 70 percent (of the city’s residents) support it,” he said.

“We need to be careful how we do this,” Mayfield said. “I don’t want to drive by something three years from now and ask myself, ‘Why did I do that?’”

The city in 2003 bought a 200-acre tract on Fisher Ferry Road for a sports complex for $325,000. City officials abandoned the project in 2009 after spending an additional $2.7 million for preliminary plans, engineering and dirt work.

Winfield has said the Fisher Ferry site was not suitable because part of the property, including the access route, is in a flood zone.

In 2007, the city board hired USA Partners Sports Alliance of Jacksonville, Fla., for $250,000 to determine the feasibility of a proposed $25 million sports complex at Halls Ferry Park, including Bazinsky Field, proposed by the Aquila Group of Vicksburg. It would have included baseball and softball fields and related amenities, a water park, a baseball stadium/ballpark and facilities for golf, soccer, volleyball, tennis and other activities. The Aquila Group would lead the construction and management of the fields and sports facilities.

The project died after a study by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality found the site was not suitable because part of Halls Ferry Park was built on what was once the city’s landfill.

Under an agreement between the city and USA Partners, which was hired after the Aquila Group approached the city, the company would return the $250,000 feasibility study cost to the city if the complex did not materialize. More than four years later, the city has not been reimbursed.

Separately, in Monday’s meeting, the board voted to help friends of the late Riley Harper in finding a place to preserve the city employee’s memory.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen gave a group of Harper’s friends approval to plant a tree and place a memorial on city property. The action came after discussing the request with Harper friends Rosalee Theobald and Patty Mekus and city landscape director Jeff Richardson. Richardson said placing the tree in the Art Park at Catfish Row is a possibility.

Harper was a landscape supervisor for the city who died on Jan. 16.

Collected money will go toward a tree and marker, Theobald said.

She said Karen Faulk, who owns Faulk Nursery, where Harper worked as a teen, will order the tree for the memorial.

The board also granted 30-day extensions to five owners of flood-damaged homes in Ford Subdivision.

Homes at 396, 385, 296, 414 and 395 Ford Road, and at 85 Brown Alley and 110 Eva St. were on the list for demolition and removal by the city. The property owners of homes at 385 and 395 Ford Road did not receive extensions because they had not responded to notices from the city that the properties need to be cleared, property maintenance director Benjie Thomas said, adding, “We’ve got homes (in Ford and the Kings community) where people have left them and never returned.”

He said the extensions were granted to allow property owners time to decide what they want to do with the property.

“Once we learn their intentions, we can move on the properties,” he said.

He said if property owners decide to raze the buildings themselves, they need to get a demolition permit from the city.

“Do not put the demolition debris by the side of the road,” he said. “The property owners are responsible for removing their debris.”

In a related matter, the board granted an extension to the owner of 1019 North First St. to remove trash and debris and remove a dilapidated building.