Lowndes County to possibly enter inter-local agreement with state

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Lowndes County is in the process of trying to enter into an inter-local agreement with the state.

The county wants to use some fields at Lake Lowndes State Park.

Since it’s state-owned, the county would have to lease them from the park.

Although the board of supervisors took no action on the measure, plans are in motion for the future of the county’s park system.

If you want to find a county-owned baseball field in New Hope, you’re out of luck.

“I think we’re about the only ones that doesn’t have baseball fields out there for the public,” says Lowndes County District 3 Supervisor John Holliman.

“I’ve played softball on all of the fields out here, at Lake Lowndes, several years ago, and I really have hated to see them not being used, and I think it would be a benefit for the people in Lowndes County to have access to that,” says New Hope resident, Rick Saucer.

Lowndes County Recreation Manager Roger Short says the county has been in the process of working out an inter-local agreement with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks for some time.

The county wants to use these fields and a concession stand.

“We’d like to use it for practice. We could also use it for soccer practices, which we know we sometimes come up short with that, and then also to use it for a possible, local baseball, softball league for New Hope. Of course I say New Hope, also anybody that would want to play.”

If the deal goes through, it would be a 12 month lease.

Short believes it would cost $30,000 a year, to start with.

“We’d be responsible for maintaining the fields, as far as mowing, that type of thing. We’d be responsible for the utilities, light and water, for the facilities. We would have access to the concession.”

“We already help Lake Lowndes with coal mix for the potholes in the road and also, we mow their dam every year for them, so I think it would be a great, great asset to us,” says Holliman.

Short says the inter-local agreement is the start of the county’s long-range recreation plan.

“There’s been a lot of discussion that there may possibly be a sportsplex down the road in the county, so this, but this does give us a place right now, for some of the citizens of the county to begin to play baseball or softball if they chose to,” says Short.

Short says if supervisors approve the lease, Lake Lowndes will still provide security.