The Opp City Council discussed upgrading a walking trail near Merchant’s Field Monday night.

Mayor H.D. Edgar said the owner of the property was upset because of all the traffic that had been parked there during the current rec league ball season, and had placed a “no parking” sign at the park.

Previously, the city had entered into a verbal agreement with the owners, and they let the city have the walking trial.

The owner called city hall trying to resolve the issue, but nothing was resolved.

Edgar said when he finally found out about the situation, he was able to talk to the owner and he has since took down the sign and allowed people to again park their; however, Edgar said the paving around the park has broken off in some places and needs to be fixed.

“I’m sending a letter to Joe Davis detailing our plan to keep it up, and make the walking trail all around, we’ll have to use lime rock because I’m sure we can’t afford to pave it,” Edgar said. “I don’t know the actual cost of how much it would cost, but we can put in the pipe that’s there.”

Edgar said the dam around the pond had been fixed, but the owner hasn’t had a chance to put in the pipe, and it was the owner’s intentions to place a walking trail around the entirety.

Edgar said the total distance around the trail is approximately a half-mile.

Currently there are people who use the trail for walking in the morning and afternoon, but since there is no lighting, it’s not conducive to night walking, Edgar said.

“He’s very interested in the idea,” he said. “I’m just running it by y’all. When it was done years ago, there were not as many ball fields. Now we have four to five games going on and there are lots of cars and no where to park.”

“We need the property, and we need to make the owners happy,” Edgar said. “I think we can really enhance it, but if we don’t do anything else, we have to fix the pavement and put sod down where folks have parked.