Jackson Free Press

BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — Brandon Mayor Butch Lee is proposing a 2 percent additional tax on food and beverage sales at local restaurants to pay for a multi-field complex focused on baseball.

He said the goals are to allow the city's Shiloh Park to convert more to soccer and girls fast-pitch softball and to put his city in a position to host major regional youth sports tournaments.

"I look at youth sports as an economic development tool to drive in more people into this area" and boost the need for more restaurants and retail options, Lee tells The Clarion-Ledger (http://on.thec-l.com/10wyfvo ).

"And that's a natural feed into our sister cities of Pearl and Flowood" with the coming outlet mall and retail and lodging options," he said.

"People don't mind taxes as long as they know where their tax money is being spent," he said.

Town Hall meetings are scheduled for June 4 and 6.

Lee pictures Brandon as a travel destination for youth sports, akin to Birmingham and Southaven.

"We're about families and youth ... and we just want to do more of it," he said.

Brandon voters would have to approve the tourism tax in a referendum.

Reed Harrington of Brandon, who gone to youth tournaments with a softball team, said he would support a tourism tax to get the complex.

"As of right now, there are no places for girls' softball to be played in Brandon. We don't have a softball field" with a no-grass infield, Harrington said.

"I think it's overdue. These towns throughout the whole state of Mississippi have been doing this quite a while, and you can see how they've progressed with their facilities with the money they've generated in these tournaments."