Selma City Council to meet Friday on Memorial Stadium ownership transfer

The Selma City Council will meet Friday to discuss turning over Memorial Stadium and Bloch Park to the Selma City Schools.

Selma City Schools has asked the city to turn the Memorial Stadium and Bloch Park over to them so they can repair the stadium in time for football season. Memorial Stadium has not been usable since Hurricane Zeta damaged it in the fall of 2020. Some repairs were made, but the Jan. 12 tornado caused more damage. The city has not yet received any insurance reimbursement from the tornado, and Selma city school system is afraid that if repairs aren’t made over the summer, the Selma Saints will be unable to schedule any home games for the upcoming football season.  

Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. has urged the City Council to take action on transferring the property. Perkins told the City Council at their regular meeting Tuesday that Selma School Superintendent Dr. Zickeyous Byrd told him that the schools need a deed to the properties right away so that the schools can get up to $3 million from the Alabama Special Education Fund. The legislative session is about to end.

Perkins repeated the alarm at a special called meeting the city council held Wednesday evening, but City Council President Warren “Billy” Young said that turning the property over to the school system was not on the agenda of that meeting. He said the council will discuss the property as soon as they get information from their attorney. “We have not been sitting on our hands,” Young said.

Perkins said, “We cannot continue to wait 30 to 40 days. The threat is not getting money from the trust fund. The threat is not having a field for our children to play (home football) games” this season.

Perkins said the city schools have talked to an engineering firm to build their own facility. If the school system goes that route because the city didn’t help, city government “will have that albatross around our neck,” he said.