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A major land agreement between the City of Bainbridge and the US Army Corps of Engineers was resolved last week. Last Thursday afternoon, members of the city government met with representatives from the USACE, alongside Congressman Sanford Bishop, for the deed transfer of the Earle May Boat Basin from the Corps to the city.

After a brief introduction by Mayor Edward Reynolds and an invocation by City Councilman Kregg Close, Myles Barton took to the podium, speaking on behalf of the Corps. He commended the city for its management of the property; “I can tell you, we lease a lot of lands across the southeastern United States for public parks. This is the vision that we have when we lease out lands, because y’all are doing what we cannot do with a limited budget.”

Mayor Reynolds spoke next. “I will say, we have been working directly on this opportunity since 2018, and we’ve made a lot of trips to Washington, a lot of phone calls and e-mails. I feel like we’ve been great partners with the Corps, we feel like we can continue moving forward after this transfer.”

Lastly, Congressman Bishop took to the podium; the Congressman had contributed to get the deed transfer through in Washington. “Let me say that this is a great Christmas gift for Bainbridge, Decatur County and Southwest Georgia,” he said. “It means a lot, when we on the federal level and people on the local level can actually collaborate and work together to get things done.”

After some more words were given, the ceremony concluded with livery of seisin ceremony.