High school sports in the city of Selma are in a race against time, Selma School Superintendent Dr. Zickeyous Byrd told the Selma City Council April 27.
Yet the city has not taken action to transfer ownership of storm-damaged Memorial Stadium and Bloch Park to Selma City Schools so they can repair the facilities in time to schedule home football games.
City officials met in executive session April 27 to discuss transferring the property, and Byrd sent them off to their deliberations with a sense of urgency.
“On behalf of the school district, we find ourselves in a race against time,” Byrd said. “Recreation and sports are important to the community and important to our scholars, and if we are unable to make improvements to the stadium, we will not have any home games, which would be an absolute tragedy. Of course, we want to avoid that at all costs.”
If the stadium gets repaired, the city could be back in the game of attracting state championships, Byrd acknowledged. Selma used to host Alabama High School Athletic Association tournaments but lost that to other schools with better facilities several years ago.
Byrd said he has been talking to Perkins about improving the stadium since he took the job in August and has toured the facilities with the mayor and head of city parks and recreation. He made the plan for transferring ownership official in a letter to Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. on April 11. On April 27, a committee of councilpersons, administration officials and their attorneys met in executive session to discuss the idea. The state’s open meeting law prevented a representative of Selma City Schools from attending the session with city officials.
The committee reported after about an hour that they had no action to report. Another meeting has not been scheduled by May 1.
Before the executive session, Recreation Department Director Denisha Hendricks told the council that the city had received insurance payments to reimburse the city for repairing bleachers in Memorial Stadium damaged by Hurricane Zeta. The city has not received any insurance claims or FEMA reimbursement related to the Jan. 12 tornado, she said.
The executive session included Council President Warren “Billy” Young, Finance Committee Chairman Troy Harvill and Councilpersons Atkin Jemison and Jannie Thomas; Recreation Department Director Denisha Hendricks; and City Attorney Major Madison Jr. An attorney representing the City Council attended the meeting via telephone.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.