It turns out the Clarksdale Municipal School District has been leasing Crumpton Field from Coahoma County since 1965 for $10,000 for a period of 99 years.
The Coahoma County School District has been subleasing the field from the CMSD in more recent years.
CMSD board attorney Carlos Palmer discussed those discoveries during Thursday’s board meeting.
After the CMSD built its own field at the high school, the plan was to potentially sell Crumpton Field – located on Lee Drive - to the CCSD. Instead, Palmer explained the field is 16th section land that belongs to the county and the options for both the CMSD and CCSD are different than anticipated.
“The interesting thing about these processes is that you have board members over time that come in, come out,” said Palmer opening the discussion. “You’ve got superintendents that come in, come out. Sometimes certain records get lost in the process of those transitions.”
Palmer said the major flooding that occurred in 2015 when the CMSD central office was on Friars Point Road caused many documents to be lost. As a result, he has not seen official documentation about the leases.
“Of course, the board is aware that the Coahoma County School District had expressed an interest in terminating its lease with this school district regarding Crumpton Field,” Palmer said. “I was under the initial belief that this property may have been owned by the district. Come to find out, it was actually owned by Coahoma County.”
Palmer said he contacted the Coahoma County tax assessor/collector’s office along with CCSD board attorney Nathaniel Armistad and the lease has not been produced.
“I was here,” said CMSD board president H. Clay Sandy Stillions reflecting on the 2015 flooding. “We lost everything.”
Board member the Rev. Zedric Clayton said the government owns the Crumpton Field property.
“We can’t give them (CCSD) something we don’t own,” Clayton said.
Palmer said the CCSD could pay $25,000 to break its sublease with the CMSD.
“You remember what the attorney (Armistad) said, ‘We just want out of the lease,’” Palmer said. “But we wouldn’t be able to sell this property to someone else because we don’t own based on the documentation I have and the questions I asked of the tax collector.”
Palmer said he does not know if the sublease was an old school handshake or a written agreement.
“We don’t have any record of that in writing, anything of that taking place,” said CMSD superintendent Dr. Earl Joe Nelson.
“Why do they have to pay us anything if you don’t have a lease,” asked Clayton.
Attempting to clarify, Stillions agreed the property was not the district’s.
“However, the improvements are,” Stillions said. “They’ll be paying for the improvements, not the actual land.”
Palmer provided the different options.
“I don’t know what this board wishes to do once this sublease is taken care of, but the district could keep its lease in place to 2060-whatever it is and we still be responsible for cutting the grass, maintaining the property,” Palmer said. “Or it may be a situation where this district wants to go to the (Coahoma County) Board of Supervisors.”
Palmer said the CMSD board could tell the Board of Supervisors it appreciated the accommodation the past several decades, but there is no longer a need to lease the property. The CMSD could ask to be released from the lease.
Stillions said he did not have an exact number, but the CCSD pays a small amount of money to sublease Crumpton Field.
“We may be at a point where we just say, ‘We’re done. We’re walking away. It’s yours,’” Stillions said. “I don’t want to do that because, as I said, we spent a lot of money on the improvements out there and they’re going to benefit from that. I think it’s fair the amount we agreed on for all the aluminum bleachers.”
Stillions acknowledged improvements needed to be made, but reiterated the CMSD has spent a lot of money on Crumpton Field.
“We just paid off the lights,” Nelson said. “It took 20 years to pay that off.”
Sale of Myrtle Hall IV
The board also discussed selling the old Myrtle Hall IV school located at 700 Fifth St.
By law, Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School has first right to any property the CMSD would like to sell.
Nelson reached out to Clarksdale Collegiate Public Charter School executive director Amanda Johnson last week.
“I did talk to executive director Johnson and she did indicate that she would like to look at the building and I just indicated to her that whenever she wants to look, we’ll take care of it on our end,” Nelson said. “She does want to go and look at it.”
Palmer concurred.
“To supplement what Superintendent Nelson said, I had reached out to her as part of all these different properties that we have been dealing with and I asked her, I said, ‘Well, look, we have certain properties as a district are looking at making some decisions going forward. And it’s been brought to my attention that you’re over the charter school that you would have first right of refusal as a charter school,’” Palmer said.
Stillions said all board members who are available should be present when Johnson takes a tour of the facility.
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