A portion of Richard Craig Park is getting a new name.

In the wake of Joeann Compton’s recent retirement from the Henry County Parks and Recreation Department after 35 years as a tennis coach and mentor for county athletes, the McDonough City Council voted at its November 15 regular meeting to approve the naming of the Joeann Compton Tennis Center.

Compton is credited with helping create the Henry County Tennis Association, and a weekly youth league in the county bears her name. Some of her students have gone on to play collegiate and professional tennis.

In other business, a total of approximately 319 acres on the east side of McDonough were annexed into the city after three separate requests were approved by the council. A total of five tracts on Turner Church Road were approved for annexation with lateral zoning, meaning each applicant received by subsequent vote a zoning designation equal to what had been previously in force in the unincorporated county. All of these tracts are undeveloped, and officials noted during the discussion that there are no plans to develop the property in the immediate future.

A motion to renew a lease agreement for the Veterans Support Group Inc. until the end of January failed. The organization has been leasing a city-owned building for five years and served several thousand veterans during that time, according to Mayor Billy Copeland.

The original agenda item was to consider renewing the five-year lease which expired in October, but council member and mayor-elect Sandra Vincent objected to that on the grounds that it would illegally bind a future council. She made the alternate motion for the shorter lease period so that the new council could consider a longer period in January.
The council approved an emergency repair to a discharge pipe at the Toys R Us lift station. The $29,186.30 cost will include the replacement of a submersible solids handling pump, according to a city staff report, and will be paid from the wastewater plant budget. Also approved was a $45,208.45 expenditure for personnel services to be paid from the general fund.

A motion to approve a two-year lease extension for the photography museum at 369 Macon Street failed for lack of a second. Officials said the current lease expires in 2023 so the issue is not time-sensitive.