The McComb city board unanimously passed a resolution to request the state Legislature to revive the city’s motel tax at a special called meeting Tuesday.
However, the vote, which Mayor Whitney Rawlings encouraged to show a united local front to lawmakers, wasn’t reached without agitation.
In the work session that preceded the meeting — which was called to allow the board to meet the Legislature’s Friday deadline for local and private legislation — Selectman Melvin Joe Johnson questioned the wording of the bill’s title.
The title specifically requests “local and private legislation to authorize the ... city to impose a tax” and use the proceeds “to promote tourism, parks and recreation” and related purposes. It does not specifically use the phrase “motel tax.”
Rawlings, who has recently proposed using motel tax funds to build two additional baseball fields at the McComb Sports Park, said the revised wording “is perfectly clear to everyone, I would’ve thought.” He said the language that earmarked motel tax proceeds for the sports park was changed at the request of local legislators.
“Ultimately, when this resolution comes through, we are in control of it,” Rawlings said. “(The park) has not lived up to its potential, and we must commit funds to restart the project. I can’t tell you the finish date, but I certainly can if we don’t restart (the tax) — it won’t happen.”
Johnson then questioned the bill’s lack of information detailing how the proceeds will be distributed between the McComb Sports Park, tourism and recreation.
“If (percentages are) not indicated when it comes out of Jackson, it’s going to be for the tax, it can come back and they can hold it here,” Johnson said. “And this governing board, the way it is now, they can go ahead and sign or take tourism out it or recreation or whatever they want to.”
Selectman Tommy McKenzie agreed with the mayor that the board should send a united message to Jackson and said the board can discuss the use of the funds later.
Johnson asked McKenzie if he would sit down and reason with other board members. McKenzie offered to shake Johnson’s hand to show he will reason with him.
Johnson declined, saying, “I don’t like to shake hands because, I might pass out before that time comes.”
McKenzie reiterated his intentions to discuss the issue with selectmen if the tax is revived. The board approved a request to revive the tax last year, but the bill failed two votes in the House.
Board attorney Wayne Dowdy said the board cannot shut tourism and recreation out because both are included in the bill’s title. However, it can determine the disbursement of the tax proceeds.
Johnson also suggested the city set its sights on renovating the deteriorated and condemned Martin Luther King Center gym.
“Kids need something to entertain them, and that’s a real cheapskate up there,” Johnson said of spending $60,000 on a new roof and another $20,000 on the inside of the building.
The sports park is estimated to cost about $800,000 to complete over the next six years. Johnson said the tax will not bring in enough funds, and the project may take as many as 12 years to complete.
The tax died in June 2009. When it was in effect from 2005 to 2009, it brought in $570,000 — an average of $142,500 each year. At the same clip over a 6-year period, the tax would total $855,000.
If the House and Senate each pass the bill by a three-fifths majority this year, and Gov. Haley Barbour signs off on it, the city will still have to clear an additional hurdle — a citywide vote that will also require a three-fifths majority.
As the board prepared to vote, McKenzie and selectmen Michael Cameron, Andranette Jordan and Ted Tullos voted to pass the bill.
Johnson said he would get on board, but he wanted the motel tax included in the bill’s title.
“We’ve just got private. That don’t have to be in there?” Johnson asked.
Board attorney Wayne Dowdy, who drafted the resolution, said he followed the Senate committee’s guidelines that call for a general heading with specifics detailed within the text of the document.
The request to implement the 3 percent motel tax is spelled out in the proposal’s second paragraph.
With the vote still in progress, Johnson and Selectman Tammy Witherspoon voted for the measure.
