Mayor Paul Winfield’s newest proposal to raise up to $20 million for a recreational complex is for city residents only — not county — to pay an additional ½ percent sales tax.

“I’m recommending this because of what I perceive to be hesitancy on the part of the county to grant our request to place the sales tax on the (Nov. 6) ballot,” he said.

Winfield said Tuesday he would introduce a resolution at Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to ask the Mississippi Legislature to pass a bill allowing the city to seek the sales tax increase.

He had proposed the tax go countywide during a March 12 meeting about the sports complex.

Sales at most Vicksburg businesses currently are taxed at 7 percent, though an additional 1 percent is tacked on at restaurants and bars.

If the newest proposal wins approval by the City Board and then the Legislature, it will be up to the voters of Vicksburg to decide whether to add the ½ percent sales tax to raise up to $20 million to purchase land in Warren County and develop a recreational complex that the mayor has said will attract teams from across the state and South.

Sixty percent of the voters would have to approve the tax before it could be implemented. He said he expects the sales tax to raise $2.6 million a year.

Winfield gave no date for the proposed referendum, but said the special election would be held before the Nov. 6 general election.

He said the resolution will replace one passed by the board in February seeking a 2 percent increase in the city’s hotel tax and a 1.5 percent food and beverage tax.

Winfield also said he wants to meet with members of the county’s legislative delegation either Friday or Monday to discuss the new resolution.

State Reps. Alex Monsour and George Flaggs and state Sen. Briggs Hopson III declined to comment on the sales tax until they met with the board.

Monsour did not know if he could meet with the board on Friday. Flaggs said he could not meet Friday, and Hopson said he might be able to meet on Monday.

Winfield announced the new funding plan at a Tuesday morning work session in his office attended by Aldermen Michael Mayfield and Sid Beauman, city buildings and inspections director Victor Gray-Lewis, interim public works director Garnet Van Norman and Marie Thompson, Winfield’s policy director.

Warren County supervisors were invited to the meeting, he said, but none attended.

Supervisors William Banks, Charles Selmon and John Arnold said they were not told about the meeting. District 5 Supervisor Richard George and board President Bill Lauderdale said they had prior commitments.

Winfield met with the supervisors last week about the sports complex but they did not endorse the project. That same week, the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors supported the sports complex concept but not the sales tax.

Joyce Clingan, president of Vicksburg’s Chapter of the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association, said the association supports the sales tax, but wanted hotels and restaurants exempted.

Tuesday afternoon, four of the supervisors said while they supported the sports complex idea, they would have opposed putting a countywide sales tax referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot because they did not have enough information on the project.

Lauderdale would not say how he would have voted, but said he had talked with city and county residents who want more details on the sports complex.

“When you’re talking about raising taxes, people want to know the details,” he said. “They want to know what they’re paying for.”

Winfield made his initial push for the sports complex in January.

The city in 2003 paid $325,000 for a 200-acre tract on Fisher Ferry Road for a sports complex, but 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 is not suitable because part of the property, including the access route, is in a flood zone.

Also, 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.