November 3, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Teaming up to potentially expand recreational opportunities
During Monday night’s monthly meeting, the county commission voted to create a parks and recreation committee made up of seven people including a county commissioner, a City of Smithville alderman or mayor, and five citizen members.
Commissioner Tony Luna, Chairman of Economic Development said his committee recently met and voted to recommend the formation of this new parks and recreation team as a way to join forces with the city and Chamber of Commerce to enhance grant opportunities to expand recreational offerings in DeKalb County such as possibly parks and ball fields.
“In our economic development committee, we floated the idea of creating a parks and recreation committee,” said Commissioner Luna. “We talked to (Chamber Director) Suzanne Williams and if we do create this committee there are lots of grants we can apply for and probably get. We could possibly build a new ball field or even a new ball complex for the kids. This would be a volunteer committee. Commissioner Tony (Cully) Culwell has agreed to serve on it. I have also talked to Smithville Mayor Josh Miller and he said that he or one of the aldermen he thought would also serve on it and we would like to get five more from the community. Tony has already started talking to some people who wanted to volunteer to be part of it but before that we have to create this parks and recreation committee. The reason we want to team up with the city is because we believe we could get more accomplished by working together,” said Commissioner Luna
Members of the committee, yet to be named, will be appointed by the county mayor.