For the first summer in 15 years, there will be no splash pad at Catfish Row.

“I want to make it emphatically clear, the splash pad will not be ready for the summer,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “As mayor of this city, I’m letting the public know the splash pad will not be operating for the summer. I’m saying it in time so people can make the adjustment to it. It is one of the most useable places for recreation on the summer.”

City officials initially planned to have a new splash pad in operation by May in time for summer.

Flaggs’ comments come on the heels of a decision Monday by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to rescind the contract it awarded to Planet Recess of Baker, La., and re-advertise.

City attorney Nancy Thomas said the award was rescinded because the bid was illegal. Under state law, she said, an out of state bidder like Planet Recess must include a copy of its state’s out of state bid law. That copy was not included with the company’s bid.

“I take full responsibility as mayor of this city, but I’m making it clear I’m trying to do this legally, and in a legal way, and in the long-term interest of the city,” he said. “I refuse to rush it.”

The lone bidder on the project, Planet Recess submitted a bid of $536,617 to rebuild the pad, which was demolished after it became too expensive to repair.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved the bid pending the review by Landscape Services, the Tupelo-based landscape architecture firm hired for the project.

The company’s bid is $311,617 more than the project’s $225,000 budget, but South Ward Alderman Alex Monsour, who oversees recreation, said there were some “contingencies to make it work.”

The 15-year-old splash pad was a popular and well-used attraction for the city, but was shut down last year for almost one month, from June 30 to July 26, while city workers installed rebuilt pumps and filter motors.

City officials closed the splash pad in June after the filter motor locked up, requiring a new part to be ordered and installed. However, as workers prepared to make the repairs, other problems occurred, forcing the city to bring in a crew from Jackson to examine the problem.

Monsour said in October the problem became worse as the season went on.

“The old design pad, even though we fixed it and got it all running, the pipes that are under the concrete by the end of the summer had apparently broken loose and the only way for us to get under there to fix it was to break the concrete and get the pipes fixed,” Monsour said.

“We had so much water going out from underneath it so bad and going into the street that we didn’t have a steady flow up top. We were losing water faster than it was coming out.”