In 2014 officials with the City of Vicksburg were looking at 2015 to begin work on two major projects discussed during the year. The city’s proposed and much needed capital improvements plan is being implemented and nothing seems to be happening with the sports complex, an idea that has been discussed for the past 11 years.

The capital improvements committee took a fiscally responsible step by agreeing to fund the proposed capital improvements program in phases, rather than go out in a limb and borrow the $18 million to fund the program in two phases. It’s a plan that makes good fiscal sense and makes it easier to afford the badly needed repairs and upgrades to the city’s street, infrastructure, recreation facilities and public buildings.

The sports complex presents another series of questions: Where will it be located? What will it look like? How much will it cost? What is the site selection committee doing?

The city’s ad hoc recreation committee on Dec. 15 recommended a multipurpose recreation complex and presented a drawing for a facility that covered about 270 acres. There’s still much to be done before such a facility becomes reality — site studies, feasibility studies and cost.

In the case of the sports complex, the price tag is the 600-pound gorilla in the room. The city will not be able to dip into the general fund to pay for a complex, and will have to find some alternate means of financing the project. The Legislature passed a tourism tax or an additional tax on food and beverages and hotel rooms.

With street paving and sewer and water line repairs set to begin, the remaining question still is the sports complex.

Humorist Will Rogers once said, “No man wants his cause as much as he talks about it.” When it comes to the sports complex, it will be interesting to see if that saying is true if taxpayers who say they want and support a sports complex have to reach into their pockets.