The Minden City Council’s agenda this week largely focused on the city’s REC Center Enhancement Project. From budget amendments and the creation of a new city department to bringing on a third-party sports tourism management firm, much of the evening’s business reflected the council’s goals to transform the Minden REC Center into a premier facility.
One of the first items on the agenda was amending the city’s 2025-2026 budget. A large part of the changes were made to account for the city’s plans for its REC Center Enhancement Project.
“We took out a loan for our REC Center project, removing that money from the bond account into the general fund. We are currently spending that money on construction at the Minden Sports Complex,” said Mayor Nick Cox. “We reorganized some monies from the existing REC fund to the REC enhancement project. We included revenues that we would normally receive at the REC Center into this new fund, also.”
What was also reflected in the budget amendment was the creation of Department 24, which is what the city refers to as the REC Enhancement Project. “We created a new recreation department, Department 24, that’s reflected in this budget amendment. That’s because this year we’re going to run on concessions,” said Mayor Cox.
Due to the creation of the new department, later in the meeting the council unanimously voted to authorize credit card signatory power for two of the new positions that the department added. The Recreation Enhancement Coordinator is Zack Harrison, and the Assistant Recreation Enhancement Coordinator is Haley Lewis.
Later on the agenda, the council voted to adopt a resolution to both participate in and appoint a representative to the LaMATS Administered Cooperative Purchasing Joint Commission.
“Through the LMA, there is an organization called LaMATS,” said Mayor Cox. “They mentioned to me the other day that there is this LACPC, this joint purchasing commission, and Minden has never passed a resolution to be a part of that group, and we’ve never appointed a representative.”
Essentially, this helps the city by pooling together with other members, who can then leverage shared contracts together rather than each having to run their own bid processes.
The council also granted Mayor Cox authority to enter into a sports tourism services agreement between the city and Airstream Ventures.
“Airstream is a third-party company. When we started talking about redoing the REC Complex and doing the REC enhancement project, we discussed that we would need a third party to come in and manage it. The management group that we currently have cannot really do what they’re currently doing and take on all the events that we would need to do to make the REC Complex as successful as we want it to be,” said Cox. “It seems that they share the vision that we share for what we want the REC Center to become and what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Minden City Council meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at 6 PM at the Minden Civic Center. Meetings are open to the public and, for those who cannot attend in person, are also livestreamed on the City of Minden’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, both titled “City of Minden.”