For a while, it seemed the fourth time would be the charm. The city of Vicksburg would finally get a sports complex.

The three previous attempts met with failure. The city under the administration of Laurence Leyens bought the 200-acre Fisher Ferry property for $230,000 in 2003 to build a sports complex. The plan was placed in hold in 2007, when the city considered transforming Halls Ferry Park into a mega-complex only to scrap the project because the current park is situated on what was once the city’s landfill, and the expansion was prohibited under state and federal environmental regulations.

The city returned to Fisher Ferry in 2009, but stopped work when bond money for the project was reassigned for the Washington Street bridge replacement. Former Mayor Paul Winfield tried to get a sports complex project underway, but the effort was so disjointed it never had a chance.

Then came the present attempt.

At first, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen did all the right things. It appointed an 11-member citizen committee to look at the city’s current recreation facilities and programs and look at what other communities were doing. The committee delivered its report in December 2014, with an ambitious plan for a mega-plex on 270 acres of land.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. appointed a site selection committee and the board took the extra step of hiring a consultant. It developed a funding mechanism of a 2 percent special tax on hotel room rentals and restaurant food and beverage sales to pay for the project. Everything, suddenly, seemed on the fast track.

Then it bogged down. The board became mired on whether to go it alone or get the city involved with a private company in a public/private venture. Two polls showed residents supported the sports complex but not the sales tax, with the residents saying they wanted the referendum on the sales tax held with the municipal elections in spring 2017. And an unnamed private company has entered the picture with its plan for sports/entertainment project.

And we are in limbo.

At this point, the board seems as undecided now on the sports complex as it was when it came up in early 2014. Flaggs wants to wait until he meets with the private developers and sees their plans before presenting any plans on the Fisher Ferry property, which he said won’t be developed until sometime in 2017 after the referendum.

It’s time to get back on track here. The board needs to either forget about the private developers or form a public/private partnership. It needs to concentrate on developing a city-owned sports complex and upgrading the city’s present facilities, educate the public about the sales tax, and develop and present a design for the complex.

Too much time has been wasted on this. We need to move forward and get it done. It’s long overdue and the public is tired of the delays.