When Vicksburg and Warren County’s legislators return to the Capitol Tuesday, it’ll be all about the children — where and how they’ll learn and play, to be precise.

As 2011 drew to a close, city officials renewed a push to build a youth sports complex with money generated from higher sales taxes on hotel stays and restaurant bills and bars. Earlier, during the last regular session, a bill to require attendance in kindergarten in Mississippi school districts died in committee. Each should be visited when local lawmakers write bills this year.

“Even in a poor economy, people are still going to spend money on their children,” state Rep. Alex Monsour said in support of the city’s desire to charge an additional 2 percent tax on hotel and motel room rentals and a 1.5 percent tax on restaurant and bar tabs. The current tax on each is 2 percent on lodging and 1 percent on food and beverages.

A local option referendum would be called if such a bill passed. Through a private appraiser, the city has vetted a privately-owned piece of land on which to build baseball fields, soccer fields and other sports venues — last planned in 2007-08 where Halls Ferry Park stands but abandoned in the face of environmental concerns by the state. The city hasn’t specified the tract’s location or its size.