The Selma City Council appointed a committee to negotiate with the Selma City Schools to take ownership of Memorial Stadium and Bloch Park at a called meeting on April 19.
The committee will consist of the chairs of the City Council’s finance and recreation committees, the council president, the council’s attorney, the head of the public buildings department, the recreation director, the city attorney and the mayor.
The committee will negotiate with representatives of the school system and report back to the full council, Council President Warren “Billy” Young said. Young said the City Council has the responsibility for negotiations and eventual disposition of city property.
“Time is of the essence,” Young said. “(Selma City Schools) need to get ready for football season.”
Perkins agreed. “There is a real sense of urgency” to give the school system time to make the stadium football ready, Perkins said. “We don’t have the money to invest to make it ready.”
School Superintendent Dr. Zickeyous Byrd sent a letter to Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. asking the city to transfer ownership of Memorial Stadium to the school system so that Selma High School can have a place to play home games. The letter was presented to the City Council on April 11.
Memorial Stadium has been in disrepair for years, and it was further damaged by Hurricane Zeta and the January tornado. As a result, “students and voters in this community have expressed their disappointments of not being able to compete in any baseball, softball or track/field sporting events atour local ‘home’ stadium,” Byrd said in his letter. “I am increasingly concerned that if we do not repair the stadium quickly, we will find ourselves in danger of not having any football games played in Selmaduring the upcoming season.”
Finance Committee Chairman Troy Harvill suggested it may be “more beneficial for the city to look at a long-term lease” of the park and the stadium.
The letter from Selma City Schools said that the public would continue to have access to the property if they owned or operated it.
Perkins said the discussion does not include Valley Creek Park, the park with the walking trail adjacent to Bloch Park on Dallas Avenue.
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