Lowndes County Hires Consultant For Park and Rec Operations; Doesn’t Allow City To Be Apart Of Process

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)-It’s a vote the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors knew was coming for more than a week.

Then in a vote 3-2 the county hired a consultant to review the Columbus Lowndes Recreation Authority.

The goal is to learn more about how to improve operations.

“I’ve had people from the Steens area call me, New Hope, and just a lot of people that live out in the county wanting to know why they don’t have any ball fields or any recreation,” said Harry Sanders, president of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors.

No one was opposed to bringing in a consultant, they just didn’t like how the proposal was made.

Some board members say they want all parties to be a part of the selection process, but that won’t be the case.

“Some of our funding comes from the city, some of our funding comes from the county, therefore those two need to get together, but as we just heard in the meeting, the county is just trying to find some talking points for themselves, but collectively, I think we all do better when we work together,” said greg Lewis, executive director of Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority.

“The city is disappointed,” said Joe Dillon, public information officer for the city of Columbus. “The city was left out of the loop and we believe the city had something to offer in terms of making the consulting study more efficient.”

“There’s some problem that they said we didn’t include the city, that the city wanted to be involved, but we’re under a tight schedule,” said Sanders. “The consultant says if we hired him today that he could have our first report by August 15th.”

Board members who voted in favor of moving forward with the hire said the city should not be involved.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the inter-local agreement” said Sanders. “Mr. Brigham said in the meeting today, that this was Lowndes County board of supervisors wanting some direction on what lowndes county needs to do as far as park and rec is concerned. Lowndes county hired the consultant to tell us what we need to do.”

Supervisors said once the report is done it will be shared with all stakeholders.

“Only vote today was to hire a consultant,” said Sanders. “After the consultant is hired, and after the consultant gives us our report we’ll make the city, city council, mayor, parks and rec board on what needs to be done and what path we need to take going forward.”

The board hired R. F Outdoor Consulting for about four thousand dollars.