The 10- to 14-member committee chosen to find a site and develop a sports complex for Vicksburg and Warren County will include representatives from several groups in the community, Mayor Paul Winfield said Tuesday.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen is expected to name the committee Monday.

“I think the ad hoc committee should be made up of people who either have experience in the area of Little League sports and facilities either by experience or training,” he said Tuesday. “We also need someone with financial experience to look at the funding aspects and check the numbers, and a civil engineer who knows the topography of Vicksburg.

“I think 10 to 14 members would be the perfect size for a project like this,” he said. “This project does not belong to one person. This is the community’s project.”

The mayor discussed the special committee at a public meeting on the sports complex Monday night. He also proposed an alternate means to finance the project using a countywide sales tax of either ½ or 1 percent to pay off up to $20 million in bonds to buy and develop property outside the city for the sports complex.

He also identified two pieces of property in the county under consideration as complex sites.

Winfield said several people have been selected for the committee, but said he would identify none until a full committee is named. However, he said the committee would include high school baseball, softball and soccer coaches, members from the city’s youth baseball and girls softball leagues, and retired professional athletes.

“I expect the committee to be self-governing,” he said. “We may have some members looking at sites, some looking at the cost of developing the site and some looking at the design.”

He said the committee’s work might allow the board to approve money for site surveys, designs and cost estimates to better determine the project’s scope and size.

Winfield said one of the sites under consideration for the complex is on the east side of U.S. 61 North, north of River Region Medical Center. He said the property is owned by Vicksburg businessman Pete Buford and was about 144 acres, adding it runs north and then east of the hospital.

Jim Hobson of Varner Realty, which lists the property, said Buford owns the property, but declined to comment if he had been approached by Winfield about the land. He said the property is 135 acres.

The second site is a 268-acre tract owned by the Lum Estate off Mississippi 27 and adjacent to Warren Central High School.

Former Warren County Supervisor David McDonald, who is working to bring the city and Lum heirs together, said the property starts behind the old Strong Honda building on Mississippi 27 and extends south to the Illinois Central Railroad tracks.

Both sites have hills and hollows. McDonald said the Lum property has some open bottom and ridge tops.

“It’s not flat by any means,” he said. “It’s hard to find any property without hills in Warren County.”

“These are only two possible sites,” Winfield said. “There are other sites that we haven’t looked at, and there’s the Fisher Ferry site. It will be up to the committee to look at the properties and make a recommendation.”

The sports complex project took flight on Feb. 19 when the Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved a resolution asking the Mississippi Legislature to pass a local and private bill to increase the city’s hotel tax from 2 to 4 percent and levy a 1.5 percent food and beverage tax.

The resolution is on hold after Winfield introduced the countywide sales tax. He said the board would rescind the current resolution and replace it with a resolution to the Legislature seeking the sales tax increase if he can get community support and the support of the Warren County Board of Supervisors. He said he will meet with the supervisors at their next work session, which is set for March 26.

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 the Fisher Ferry site is not suitable, saying 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.