In the saga of new recreation facilities in the city, citizens have a right to wonder.

Is this thing ever going to be built? The city has spent $3 million since 2003 with little more than few shovels of dirt moved for its trouble.

The project to give Vicksburg a new recreation complex has endured more false starts than a nervous offensive line facing the league’s best pass rush.

Mayor Paul Winfield’s plan to borrow $18.5 million to $19.5 million, which would be paid back in higher taxes on restaurants and lodging over 15 years, is yet another chapter in the ongoing recreation complex saga. Is it the right move? With the economy struggling, raising taxes is never the best of ideas.

But wherever the money comes from, the city needs a new recreation complex desperately.

The location would be important. The city bought 200 acres in 2003 off Fisher Ferry Road and plans to build the center there were derailed by the understandable need to repair the railroad bridge on Washington Street. The Fisher Ferry site still sits vacant. A proposal to build a new complex at Halls Ferry ran into environmental issues in 2008, as the site used to be the city’s dump.

Whatever site is picked needs to be convenient to restaurants and shopping and be easily accessible to out-of-towners.

But there are several points all can agree on. Halls Ferry Park, the home of the Governor’s Cup, is inadequate to the task. The facilities there are too small, rapidly aging and are unable to attract the big tournaments thanks to their lack of amenities that other facilities have.

Cities throughout the state, bigger and smaller, have built facilities and are already bidding to host state and national baseball and softball tournaments. Travel ball tournaments are a definite shot in the arm for local businesses, as teams bring their families to town for several days at a time. People have to eat, sleep and buy gas, all of which would be much-needed economic activity. Bring a state tournament to town and the activity will increase. Win a bid on a national tournament and watch that activity quintuple.

The competition already is ahead in the race and continues to build a huge lead that only gets bigger by the day.

Southaven has a new complex. So does Petal. There’s no excuse for a place with such a marvelous central location within easy driving distance of several states not to at least be in the game.

When I was a kid, my older cousin saw me put one piece of shrimp on my hook, ready to cast it into a honey hole in Mobile Bay after a large school of speckled trout feeding furiously.

“Son, if you want to catch the bigger fish,” he said, swapping out the shrimp for a big piece of cut bait from some mullet we netted earlier. “You’ve got to have the bigger bait.”

Vicksburg needs some bigger bait, pronto.

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Steve Wilson is sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. You can follow him on Twitter at vpsportseditor. He can be reached at 601-636-4545, ext. 142 or at swilson@vicksburgpost.com.