The Sloan family, and their B & G Land Co. have proposed a combination donation of 33 acres, sale of an additional 33 acres at a price of $500,000 and a no-cost lease of 76 acres.

Stockholders of the land company are descendants of Beatrice and Gene Sloan, who had farmed the property on the southwestern edge of the current Jonesboro city limits.

The vision is to preserve the woodlands and develop walking trails. However, part of the property is used to host the Jonesboro Open, a major stop on the Disc Golf Pro Tour, scheduled for April 22-24 this year.

Attorney Jim Lyons said in a letter to city officials in November, and in a second letter on Tuesday that the disc golf course attracts added traffic in which visitors park on the sides of area streets, hampering emergency traffic and creating problems for homeowners, including litter.

In Tuesday’s letter, Lyons said city officials had failed to respond to his November Freedom of Information Act request for information relating to the potential new park.

Bill Campbell, the city’s communications director, said Thursday that Mayor Harold Copenhaver’s staff was still working to fulfill the information request, but noted, “it’s kind of scattershot.”

“Please be advised that we want all documents, records, e-mails, texts, notes, communication, sound recordings, videos or other items which pertain in any form, fashion, or means regardless of the format in which such items are retained by the City of Jonesboro, any of its employees or others who have communicated with the City regarding the Park,” Lyons wrote. In the letter, Lyons alluded to potential law violations and conflicts of interest among some employees.

“We’ll give them everything we’ve said or done,” Campbell said. He stressed city officials have not developed any firm plans for the land.

Before Copenhaver took office in 2021 and received the Sloans’ offer, his predecessor, Harold Perrin had already turned it down – not, he said, because it was necessarily a bad idea – but for financial reasons.

“Frankly, we didn’t have the CARES Act, we didn’t have a lot of that stuff that (Copenhaver) has the luxury of having, which I’m glad he’s got,” Perrin said, referring to federal pandemic relief funds made available to the city. “So, I just felt like we couldn’t do it, and I never took it to the council. At that time, we were lucky to have cash to do the parks we’ve got.”

Perrin said he felt an obligation to maintain and improve such places as the Southside Softball Complex and Joe Mack Campbell Park.

“I had rather do that than go buy a piece of property that we don’t have any equipment on,” Perrin said.

The former mayor told The Sun the city needs to develop a plan for the land and determine if the city can afford the long-term cost of maintaining it before deciding whether to move forward. At the time he was considering it, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Perrin said he determined the acquisition wasn’t feasible.