Voices in the current push to raise sales taxes on hotels, motels and restaurants to fund a sports complex grew louder by five Thursday.

Warren County supervisors voted unanimously to support Board President Bill Lauderdale’s signature on a joint resolution to ask state lawmakers to allow an additional 2 percent on rented rooms and food and beverage tabs.

Several steps remain for the added tax to become reality. If the request is turned into a bill during the current session, passes both chambers and is signed by the governor, the tax plan would go before voters Nov. 3. At least 60 percent of Warren County voters would have to approve it to go into effect.

Lauderdale said Thursday’s action to join the city in requesting the money was simply in the interest of time.

“We just needed to get this done so (the city) can get the information they need to provide to the citizens,” he said after supervisors met briefly on the topic.

The measure resembles an unsuccessful effort in 2012 to pass a sales tax hike to pay for sports infrastructure. That request ranged from ½ percent to 2 percent at various stages. That bill had only the city board’s support and died when it wasn’t taken to a vote on the House Local and Private Committee.

Two committees created by Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. are in place to analyze site feasibility, financing and marketing for a recreation area to house youth baseball, softball, tennis and other sports. An ad hoc committee wrapped up six months of public meetings and reviews by recommending a sports complex be built on 270 acres and feature 12 soccer fields, eight youth baseball fields, eight softball fields, an amphitheater and a meeting center. It would replace fields at Halls Ferry Park and soccer fields at Clear Creek in Bovina that officials for years have termed outdated.

About $3 million has been spent preparing 200 acres off Fisher Ferry Road, near St. Michael Catholic Church, as a sports complex location since the city bought it in 2003. Expenditures have run the gamut from land clearing, drainage improvement, flood plain-related engineering, and dirt work.

Last March, the city put the land up for sale for 90 days, but no takers came forward.

A week ago, more than a dozen city and county officials toured the acreage, which has been cleared of high grass and shrubbery.