VIDALIA — The City of Vidalia’s application to the Louisiana State Bond Commission to fund the proposed “village center” has been removed from the March agenda.

Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy said he removed the application from the agenda because it needs more work.

“I have received a number of phone calls, asking and raising questions about it, calls asking for more specificity about what the project entails,” Kennedy said

“It is just clear that we need to do more work on it on my end.”

Kennedy said he is trying to gather more information about the project and better understand the project before putting it before the bond commission for an up or down vote.

“We have gotten a number of phone calls alleging facts, and my job is to get the facts,” he said. “Sometimes that takes a little longer than usual.”

The treasurer said the possibility remains the application will be put back on the agenda for March if his office gets the answers it needs in time.

“I just can’t say with certainty one way or the other,” he said. “Once we get the facts, I don’t keep things off the agenda, but I (also) don’t like to go to the bond commission without all the facts.”

Documents submitted to the bond commission indicate the city seeks to finance a “village center” with potential retail, hotel and medical complex components.

The proposed site for the center is two separate but adjacent parcels of land near the western end of town, 31.67 acres owned by Scroggins Investment Company and 32.72 acres owned by BCHT, LLC.

Vidalia Mayor Hyram Copeland was at one time a partner in BCHT with Bryant Hammett, H.L. Irvin and Mark Taunton, but since 2010 Copeland, Irvin and Taunton have held no ownership stake in the LLC. Copeland said because of his past ownership of the property he has had no part in the planning of the proposal.

Copeland said Thursday evening he had not heard the application had been removed from the agenda.

“As far as I am concerned, the people of Vidalia will make this decision if they want it or they don’t, and I hope it is the people who make that decision and not anybody else,” he said.

“If the people don’t want it, they will vote against it. We will have a series of public hearings about it, and ask for their input, what they want out of it.”

Copeland said if he had known in 2006 the purchase of the property could potentially cause a problem for the town, he would not have done it.

The Vidalia board of aldermen approved last month a resolution to seek two bonds for an economic development project.

The first bond, a $4.5 million instrument with a 5-percent interest rate, would be for the purchase of land The second bond, $2.5 million at 4-percent annual interest, would be for “constructing, installing and providing streets and utilities services.”