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Wounded Warriors to play on Veterans Day

The Jonesboro Sun - 4/12/2017

JONESBORO - Veterans Day in Jonesboro will be extra special this November, as the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team has agreed to play an exhibition game here.

The team will be in Jonesboro on Nov. 10-12.

The finance and administration committee of the Jonesboro City Council endorsed a contract with the team Tuesday. The proposal will go to the full council next Tuesday.

The event will be a fundraiser for Miracle League, Sharron Turman, the city's softball coordinator, said.

"I met these individuals last year in Little Rock, and they're such an inspiration," Turman told the committee. "To be a member of this team - they come from all over the United States - and to be a member of this team, they have to be a veteran, and they have to have at least one amputation. And some of these players have two amputations."

Turman said the 15-member team wants competition.

"They play hard," she said.

The city has to provide airfare, food and lodging for the players. The Advertising and Promotion Commission is providing $25,000 for the event.

In other business, the committee endorsed an ordinance to amend the 2017 budget to pay for a large excavator for the Street Department.

The $255,402.35 excavator was previously approved and budgeted in 2016. However, the city didn't receive it and the invoice until March, so a new appropriation will be needed, said Suzanne Allen, chief financial officer.

Also Tuesday, an issue that was postponed indefinitely by the committee March 28 remains tabled.

The issue was a memorandum of understanding with Rennell Woods, director of Whole Youth Services Inc.

Doing business as At-Risk American Male Education Network (AAMEN), Woods' contract through the city's Community Development Block Grant would pay $22,948 to provide mentoring programs for about 35 Jonesboro High School students who have been identified as being at-risk of dropping out of school. The project includes job placement and training at some local businesses.

The committee postponed a decision to await approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which provides the CDBG grant. Allen said Tuesday HUD still has not yet approved it.

Questions over a potential conflict of interest were raised after reviews of city council minutes showed that Woods participated in the vote to approve CDBG measures in 2016 while Woods was a member of the council.

City Attorney Carol Duncan said HUD requires a copy of an ordinance that acknowledges that a member of the council is doing business with the city and that it approves. The council did that, she said, but HUD also requires the alderman to abstain from voting.