A City of Vicksburg resolution asking for permission to levy a ½ percent citywide sales tax to raise up to $20 million for a sports complex is on its way to the Mississippi Legislature.

Separately, a third potential site for the proposed complex has been introduced. Inside the city limits — the first two are outside the city — the site is along Warrenton Road near Rifle Range, a spot once discussed as a golf course affiliated with a proposed casino development.

In Monday’s action, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted 2-1 after Mayor Paul Winfield presented the resolution, accompanied by an information package outlining a master plan for the project and a financial analysis, which Winfield said he would send to the county’s legislative delegation.

The board also rescinded a resolution passed in February calling for a 2 percent increase in the city’s hotel tax and a 1.5 percent tax on food and beverages.

If lawmakers give the city the go-ahead, Vicksburg’s voters will decide whether the tax may be levied. Sixty percent of voters must approve the tax for it to be enacted, and Winfield has said balloting would come when voters go to the polls in the city’s 2013 general election, in June.

Winfield also has said the tax would be repealed when the debt for the complex is paid.

South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman cast the lone vote Monday against the sales tax resolution.

“I still think this needs to be a countywide deal,” he said. “I know you (Winfield) agreed to that, but you didn’t get that. I said that about recreation in 1993, and I’ll continue to say that when I leave in 2013, and I’ll believe it the rest of my life.” Two weeks ago, Warren County supervisors said they opposed a countywide sales tax for the sports complex.

Beauman also opposes building a complex until the city reaches a decision on property bought in 2003 for a sports complex off Fisher Ferry Road. After millions of dollars worth of work was done on dirt work for the complex, it sits idle.

Winfield’s package on the sports complex includes a master plan based on plans for the Fisher Ferry complex, an analysis of the tax increase, description of the complex advisory committee and letters of support from the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors, Outlets of Vicksburg and the Vicksburg Chapter of the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association.

The VCVB Board in March supported the sports complex but opposed the sales tax. The Hospitality and Restaurant Association said it would support the sales tax if the city’s hotels and restaurants are exempt.

State Reps. Alex Monsour and George Flaggs and state Sen. Briggs Hopson III all declined Monday to comment on the resolution or the bill until they have seen the information package.

Hopson said he did not know if the bill would be referred to the Senate Finance Committee because it involves a sales tax. He added Senate Local and Private Committee chairman Sen. Perry Lee, R-Mendenhall, has said he would not support a local and private bill that does not have unanimous support from the local government.

Sales at most Vicksburg businesses are taxed at 7 percent. Restaurants assess an additional 1 percent county sales tax, and hotels assess the 1 percent county tax and a 2 percent city tax on rooms.

According to Winfield’s analysis, the tax increase will raise about $2.5 million per year, enough to pay off an $18 million loan in about 7½ years. The total return on the city’s investment in the sports complex over that time is estimated at $13 million — $10.6 million to the state in sales tax revenue and $2.4 million in sales taxes to the city.

A search committee appointed to find the site for the sports complex and determine its design will include an engineer, a landscape architect, someone familiar with finance, representatives from the city’s boys baseball and girls softball associations, a local high school sports administrator, a professional athlete and a college sports official.

Where the complex would be built has not been determined. Winfield has mentioned tracts on U.S. 61 North by River Region Medical Center and on Mississippi 27 near Warren Central High School. On Monday, Winfield said he plans to meet with lawyers representing Mississippi Bluffs LLC, which owns about 480 acres of wooded land along Warrenton Road once part of Vicksburg Chemical. A 50,000 square-foot casino and adjacent 18-hole golf course was planned there in the early 2000s, but fell through in 2007 when the developer died and investors dropped out of the project. Since then, the development’s assets have been handled by various financial advisers and out-of-state law firms.

Winfield held up a letter from Houston-based law firm of Zimmerman, Axelrad, Meyer, Stern & Wise, which was copied to Flaggs, Hopson, both aldermen and others.

“It will be considered,” he said.

“It will definitely be considered by the committee,” North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield said. “I don’t know if it will make their short list, but it will be considered.”

The 200-acre Fisher Ferry site was bought in 2003 for $325,000. It was abandoned in 2009 after the city had spent 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.

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.