COMMISSIONERS
Jones County Commissioners looked at expanding recreation possibilities in the south end of the county and investment opportunities to grow county funds during their brief second Tuesday meeting for February.
The Feb. 21 meeting was called to order by Board Chairman Chris Weidner, and the prayer and pledge were led by Commissioner Sam Kitchens.
All board members were in attendance with the exception of Commissioner John Wood.
The first agenda item was an investment overview presentation by Joe Michalak of MBS. The speaker said the company works with many counties and municipalities and talked about how investments could benefit Jones County.
Kitchens made the motion for County Administrator Jason Rizner and Chief Financial Officer LaVita Crutchfield to move forward with looking at investment options and bring the information back to the board.
The motion was approved unanimously. Commissioner Daylon Martin presented the next item, adult basketball at Mattie Wells Gym. The commissioner said he was approached by several young men wanting to return to playing basketball in the gym.
Martin said he invited them to the commissioners meeting to discuss it, but they did not come. He said he would like for them to return to playing basketball, but perhaps it would be better to have league play.
Adult play had been stopped following a December incident at the gym that ended with shots being fired.
Parks and Recreation Director Bert Rosenberger said he was fine with reinstating adult play but did not recommend league play. He said situations tend to get more heated with league play.
“The main thing is not to let people in the facility when we don’t know who they are,” Rosenberger said.
Martin made the motion to reinstate adult play, and the motion to approve was unanimous.
The commissioner also presented the next item, which was the addition of a pump track at the mountain bike trail nearing completion. Rizner said he and Martin had talked about the topic after it was brought up at the last meeting.
“We went back to the company and asked for an estimate. The estimate they sent back was $47,000 for 725 feet of track,” he said.
Rosenberger said the idea of the pump track came about when it was thought that $16,000 was left over from the mountain bike trail. The additional funds turned out to be needed for the original project.
Martin said he was aware that there are grants available for that kind of project, and he would leave it there for now.
Comments
Rosenberger said he was excited about the upcoming Glow Ball Tournament for Pickleball at the Morris Bank Complex, Feb. 24-25. Commissioner Wendy Vaughn said she planned to take pictures at the event.
Crutchfield announced that the county’s audit was on schedule.
Vaughn expressed congratulations to Kitchens, who was recently promoted to Assistant Superintendent of Operations for Bibb County Schools.
