The city will implement a new 1-percent addition to its tourism taxes after voters overwhelmingly approved it in Thursday’s special election.
Nearly 74 percent of voters favored the tax, which passed with 1,689 votes for and 600 votes against. City Clerk Lisa Hardin said the city will review about 20 affidavit ballots this morning.
The city has sought to implement the tax, which will add 1 percent to its restaurant and hotel/motel sales taxes, to fund the construction of Cornerstone Park — a planned tournament ready facility with a focus on baseball and softball that is expected to cost $20-million-plus. It will be built southwest of the Highway 12-25 intersection in west Starkville.
Mayor Lynn Spruill, who has been a vocal supporter of the tax, said she thinks Thursday’s results will set Starkville on a path toward drastically improving its park system.
“To me, it says the city sees the same vision of what we can be with this park,” she said, “what we can be as a sports tourism destination and community that values recreation and sports for our children.
“We’re about to have something big,” she later added.
The new 1-percent tax is projected to bring in an additional $1.2 million per year. In addition to payments for Cornerstone Park, the city plans to use some of the funds, in addition to the 40 percent that’s currently set aside from the existing 2-percent tax, for maintenance and capital improvement projects at its existing parks.
Spruill said the city will adopt a resolution to enact the tax at Tuesday’s board meeting. She said the city should begin collecting the tax on Aug. 1. In the meantime, she said the city will quickly begin working to nail down the specifics of what will go into Cornerstone Park.
The new park will likely take 18 months to two years to build once construction begins, Spruill said.
State legislators approved, and Gov. Phil Bryant signed, the tax in the spring. It has a 10-year repealer, which means the city will have to request its renewal in the Legislature in 10 years.
Spruill said the tax, and Cornerstone Park’s eventual construction, will allow Starkville to better compete with peer cities like Oxford, Vicksburg and Hattiesburg that have made major investments in their parks systems.
“We want to, obviously, be our own city — we’re not following in others’ footsteps — but by the same token we can learn from what others do,” she said. “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. This is an opportunity for us to be on par with (cities like) Hattiesburg and Oxford.”
Ward 5 alderman
In Ward 5, Hamp Beatty won election to the board of aldermen outright over his two competitors. Beatty was one of three candidates, along with John Michael VanHorn and Kayla Gilmore, seeking election to follow former alderman Patrick Miller.
Miller, elected in 2017, resigned in April to take a job in Biloxi.
Beatty got 269 votes, to VanHorn’s 164 and Gilmore’s 34. He got about 57 percent of the vote. Hardin said there are 11 affidavit ballots to review in the, which won’t sway the election.
Beatty has lived in Starkville for 14 years. He’s previously served as an elected official elsewhere, including a stint as Newton’s mayor from 1992-2005, with prior experience as a Newton alderman.
“I’m very excited to be elected to have an opportunity to represent Ward 5,” Beatty said. “I’m looking forward to working with the mayor and board.”
He also credited VanHorn and Gilmore as “very good” opponents.
Beatty said he’ll take some time to get his feet wet on the issues the city is working on, but plans to be involved in ongoing annexation discussions and suggestions on how to use the new 1-percent tax for the city’s parks.
“Those are big issues that I’ll wade right into,” he said. “I’ve been involved in an annexation when I was in Newton. It’s a process. It takes time and a lot of careful planning in order to convince a chancery judge that you can annex an area and serve it properly.”
Spruill said she will swear in Beatty at Tuesday’s meeting.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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