Vicksburg Mayor Paul Winfield has pushed back until Monday plans to present a proposal to increase the city’s hotel and food and beverages taxes.

Winfield had called a special meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for today to discuss the bill, but canceled it late Wednesday to give city attorney Lee Davis Thames time to revise the proposed bill.

The revisions eliminate the proposed $20 million ceiling and do not specify a maximum amount. They also reduce the majority of votes in a referendum necessary to levy the tax to more than 50 percent instead of 60 percent and make the bill effective on the governor’s signature if it passes.

The changes came after a Wednesday morning meeting including Winfield, Aldermen Michael Mayfield and Sid Beauman, city clerk Walter Osborne, Thames and former Vicksburg Mayor Demery Grubbs, who is a financial consultant for Government Consultants Inc. in Jackson. Grubbs participated through a conference call and recommended the changes.

Mayfield had asked for the Wednesday meeting to resolve questions about the bill and a required special election to levy the taxes.

“I’m kind of confused about some things involving this, and I shouldn’t be,” he said. “I didn’t do my homework.”

Winfield’s initial plan was to have city voters decide on the referendum on the same day they cast ballots in November’s presidential election. On Wednesday, board members decided against that, but no other date for a referendum vote was suggested.

Osborne said holding the referendum the same time as the presidential election would create confusion because some city precincts are not aligned with those used for county elections. He said it would require city officials to open some city precincts, and require some county/city precinct workers to keep duplicate poll books and a separate ballot box for the city election.

“You would be asking people to vote twice,” he said. “Some of them would go to their county precinct (for the presidential race) and then have to go to their city precinct to vote on the referendum.”

Mayfield estimated the cost of a special election at $80,000 to $90,000.

Grubbs suggested a separate special election.

“In my opinion, if you combine it with the general election, voters are not going to read the ballot and they’ll vote against it because it’s a tax,” he said. Holding a separate special election, he said, would be worth the expense, “because the voters who support the tax are going to go out and vote for it.”

He suggested eliminating the $20 million ceiling in the bill “because, sometimes, that scares people away. And you may not need $20 million to do what you want to do.”

Winfield wants to increase the city’s 2 percent motel tax to 4 percent and add a 1.5 percent tax on food and beverages sold in the city to pay off up to a $20 million loan for the purchase and development of a sports complex. The tax increases, he said, would generate about $1.2 million, sufficient to pay off an $18 to $19 million loan in 15 years.

No site has been identified publicly for the park, though Winfield has said for weeks that he has one in mind. The only description he has given is that it is on U.S. 61 North.

He said earlier this week that he is considering other parcels.

Mayfield said after the meeting that he has found a site on U.S. 61 North that is north of River Region Medical Center, and another on Mississippi 27 South, just inside the city limits. He said both are about 200 acres.

Winfield said a special advisory committee he will name in the near future will be asked to look at possible park sites.

Mayfield said he was concerned that the city might get overly ambitious in planning a sports complex.

“I’m trying to get this thing down to where Vicksburg will have what is adequate and competitive,” he said. “We can’t afford (a) Cadillac.

“This is a need and not a want. This is a need for Vicksburg and Warren County,” he said. “I’m trying to make a determination what is the right and best thing to do, but it has to be done. Whatever we do, it has to be tomorrow worthy. ”

Beauman, a former city recreation director, said the current fields “are adequate for the numbers (of people) who play.

“A tournament facility is based on the number of fields, not the quality,” he said. “People will come to play where they’re treated best. Where there are things and activities for children to do when they are not playing.”

Beauman does not support Winfield’s plans for a new complex because the board has not decided what to do with the Fisher Ferry property.

“I can’t support spending more money (on a sports complex),” he said. “ I will not support a new facility unless we get something out of that property.”

The city in 2003 bought a 200-acre tract on Fisher Ferry Road for a sports complex for $325,000. City officials abandoned the project in 2009 after spending an additional $2.7 million for preliminary plans, engineering and dirt work.

Winfield said work was stopped on the Fisher Ferry site because it is not suitable, adding part of the property, including the access route, is in a flood zone.

In 2007, the city board hired USA Partners Sports Alliance of Jacksonville, Fla., for $250,000 to determine the feasibility of a proposed $25 million sports complex at Halls Ferry Park, including Bazinsky Field, proposed by the Aquila Group of Vicksburg. It would have included baseball and softball fields and related amenities, a water park, a baseball stadium/ballpark and facilities for golf, soccer, volleyball, tennis and other activities. The Aquila Group would lead the construction and management of the fields and sports facilities.

The project died after a study by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality found the site was not suitable because part of Halls Ferry Park was built on what was once the city’s landfill.

Under an agreement between the city and USA Partners, which was hired after the Aquila Group approached the city, the company would return the $250,000 feasibility study cost to the city if the complex did not materialize. More than four years later, the city has not been reimbursed.

“The money spent on Fisher Ferry has been spent,” Winfield said.

He suggested selling the Fisher Ferry property to a developer for a residential or mixed-use development.

“This is an investment for us to use year-round,” Winfield said of the sports complex, adding the hotel and food tax increases were the only way to fund the project without increasing taxes on property.