NAHUNTA — Travel ball vs. not travel ball and the Brantley County Recreation Board’s return to being an advisory board were brought before the Brantley County Commission during it work session.
Isaac Lloyd, a recreation board member, discussed the matters during the Tuesday, December 3 work session.
“The youth football program I run during all seasons is a voluntary program,” started Lloyd. “We allow kids to come out, if they wish to participate, and show up. For some reason, people have taken to account and feel that is a travel ball program.
“We do not do sign ups, we do not take any fees, we do not play any off season league games. We don’t use any equipment, uh, helmet, shoulder pads or anything else. All we do is conditioning and more conditioning. Recently, I’ve been told that we are to be treated as a travel ball team, and that all travel teams must pay a fee to use rec facilities.
“I need to know why the program that is not affiliated with the rec department is being treated as a travel program when it is not a travel program?”
Lloyd said that brings him to his second point — the recreation board which has not been privy to certain things.
“There’s been a lot of purchases and doing things that has not been voted on by anybody,” said Lloyd. “So, I don’t know what the purpose of a rec board is if nothing is going through us to advise or send up recommendations. It’s like they (staff) are doing what they are doing.
“There’s a lot of that going around. I can think of about six different instances of things we have not voted that have taken place.”
Lloyd said he would like for the board to get back to advising.
“We’ve gotten away from it,” he said. “We need to come back to it and get back to that.”
County Manager Joey Cason informed Lloyd he could stop by his office and discuss the matter.
“I’m the person who can resolve this,” Cason said. “I’ll be more than happy to have a meeting with you if you set up. We can’t touch on it or anything during this meeting.
“I’m not sure of all the purchases. I knew some purchases that were made with some of the fields and repaired. The last thing Joey (Saunds, rec director) brought up was safety. The last thing that I remember moving on specifically was the fields and the fences, which I think we could all agree needed to be done.”
Lloyd said the board had no say on the usage of the SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) grant of between $150,000$300,000.
“We didn’t vote on which part that it was supposed to go towards,” said Lloyd. “It went to the concession stands and bathrooms in Hortense and wasn’t voted on. The playgrounds, which I don’t necessarily disagree with, were replaced was not voted on. Money was spent.
“I feel like we need to get back to the advisory board so we can try to get suggestions, opinions and all of that, because that’s what we’re there.”
Commissioner Hal Herndon said he was under the understanding the ball fields in Hortense was in a package deal that was voted on by commissioners.
Lloyd stated he did not know about the commissioners part and he was only aware of tearing it all down and re-doing the fence.
Cason said no action has been taken on the LWCF (Land & Water Conservation Fund) grant as far as the application processes beginning.
“We do not know if we will get that until sometime later next year,” said Cason. “We won’t have any information on that until then. It was submitted and we did not vote on anything. It was my impression it was going to Slaughterville.”
