Details of a hastily-arranged, possibly illegal closed session in August between the Warren County Parks and Recreation board and two members of an ad hoc committee created by Vicksburg officials were on the lips of commission members Tuesday night.

However, not much of it appeared on the five-member panel’s official minutes taken that night and approved during a rescheduled meeting.

Entries on the minutes for the Aug. 19 session note the board was asked to meet in executive session by Omar Nelson, an attorney and chairman of the 11-person ad hoc committee put together by the city in May with a broadly defined mission of enhancing recreation for youth in the city. Nelson is not a member of the commission, which oversees Clear Creek golf course in Bovina, the soccer complex on the facility’s grounds, baseball fields and a pavilion. The city’s ad hoc panel must recommend some kind of plan to the city by Dec. 31. No site or funding mechanism for a sports complex has been discussed openly, though the committee took credit for a petition on change.org that seeks to build support for the concept of a complex.

The following day, Nelson said he and committee member Linda Fondren met the county-appointed commission to talk about “different types of funding,” which is not among six exceptions spelled out in Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act that allow some topics to be closed to public scrutiny. Nelson was among about 40 or so people who attended the commission’s meeting in August, mainly to oppose a per-car fee the panel floated to county supervisors earlier in the month. Tuesday’s meeting drew six people, all of them members or supporters of the Vicksburg Soccer Organization.

Minutes expected to be presented Monday to the Board of Supervisors note District 4 commission member Joe Loviza motioned for a closed session to set an agenda. District 5 commissioner Lloyd Clark seconded the motion. A motion to enter the session was made by Loviza and seconded by District 1 commissioner Dale McDuff, according to the two-page narrative. The minutes noted no agenda or motions were made during the session.

L.T. Walker, the commission’s chairman, issued an apology Tuesday night for the way the board handled the entire situation.

“The meeting was done in an unorthodox way,” Walker said, who referred to Nelson and Fondren not by name but as “the people who want to get the city involved in a recreation agreement.”

“We didn’t make it open to the public, and we’d like to apologize for that,” he said.

The Vicksburg Post had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the minutes. State law says minutes from a public body shall be recorded within 30 days after a public body recesses or adjourns. No response came within that time frame, during which the panel had postponed its regular meeting by two weeks, to Tuesday night. The meeting was not posted publicly on the courthouse bulletin board like other meetings by boards appointed at least in part by the county, such as the bridge and port commissions. The newspaper has also filed a report of the Aug. 19 meeting with the Mississippi Ethics Commission. Each member of the commission could face a $500 fine if found to have violated the law.

Loviza was absent from Tuesday night’s meeting. Clark distanced the board from the events of the last meeting.

“Why they’d want to talk to us in private, we have no idea,” Clark said. “It was something they wanted to do. It was not anything that needed to be in private. All they talked about, really, was us supporting them in what they’re trying to do — a multipurpose complex here.”

The panel on Tuesday tabled adopting its budget for fiscal 2014-15. In August, the board told county supervisors during budget talks it faced a $40,405 deficit for the fiscal year, which starts today. Cited were increased leases on land owned by the school district on which the soccer fields sit and higher insurance premiums for county employees.

In August, the facility took in about $43,600 from fees charged for golf and other charges, or about $4,800 less than originally projected, facility clerk Mary Puckett said.

“That’s not bad,” Puckett said. “We’ve had worse months.”

The commission further distanced itself from any idea of a per-car fee on all visitors to shore up its projected debt. A $5 amount was discussed freely with county supervisors during budget talks but has been dropped since publicized.

No hike was included in the county’s budget to the commission for basic operating costs. The panel that oversees the golf course, soccer fields, baseball fields and a pavilion receives $220,000 from the county’s general fund and another $116,000 from the fund that holds revenue-based taxes paid by Vicksburg’s four casinos.

Commissioners and the Vicksburg Soccer Organization officials remained far apart on a user-fee agreement for the new fiscal year. In 2010, VSO had agreed to pay $2,000 a year to use the fields, but, according to the commission, hadn’t paid any funds since 2012. Soccer moms and coaches balked at a $7,000 fee pitched due to language in the draft they said put too much power to decide who uses the fields in the hands of the county.

“We pay for all the paint and all the equipment,” said Chelsea Whitten, a VSO member, to commissioners. “We have no say-so on who can use the fields. We do the labor to line the fields, the paint to line the fields, use our nets, our goals, you tear them up, we replace it, still we have no say-so.”

Commissioners have said the combination of traditional soccer and “street soccer” drives up electricity costs due to the lights having to be kept on longer, hence the proposed higher user fee.

“What should be our attitude toward soccer?” Clark asked Whitten toward the close of the session, which devolved after it adjourned into a shrill shouting match over the piece of paper on which the draft was written. “Just let you do what you want to?”

“It’s not like I don’t want to work with you guys,” Whitten replied. “But, the way this is written, VSO is not allowed to grant permission (to use the fields). Only Warren County Parks and Recreation is. That’s the problem I have with it.”

Dawn Farthing, an executive board member with VSO, criticized what she termed as a lack of enthusiasm for the sport among the commission.

“We need to do a better job of coming here and talking to you,” Farthing said. “But, I’m surprised at your ignorance about soccer.”

Robert Guidry, who coaches street soccer, said he and Whitten’s volunteer labor tidying up the soccer fields took more than three hours this past weekend.

“Do we see this in the golf community?” Guidry asked. “Does this commission have a mission statement? And what is it?”

The commission, as county supervisors have done separately in criticizing the city’s approach to the topic, reminded VSO members Tuesday the county’s main source of taxation is through property taxes. Cities, on the other hand, collect sales and property taxes.

“The county is not going to raise taxes for recreation of any kind,” McDuff said. “We’ve been told that (by supervisors). The city is the one that gets sales tax. Warren County gets zero sales taxes.”