Vicksburg Municipality Election 2021 3rd Debate: V105.5 FM/The Vicksburg Post South Ward Alderman Town Hall

7:19PM Jun 2, 2021

Speakers:

Mark Jones (Moderator # 1)

Vickie Y Bailey

Alex J. Monsour, Jr. (Alderman)

Emily Tillman (Moderator # 2)

Keywords:

vicksburg

city

people

bailey

question

south

community

ward

build

ward alderman

mayor

alex

courts

candidates

vickie

property taxes

talking

sir

working

happening

Good evening. Ladies gentlemen. I'm Mark Jones along with Emily Tillman. We have The Vicksburg Post with us with Katherine Hadaway and Anna Guizerix. Glad to have you join us tonight and I know a lot of you are. We've had a lot of calls today with questions for our candidates. What we're going to do first is, we're going to have a discussion. This is a political forum or Town Hall, if you will. And we'll have the South Ward Alderman candidates on with us first tonight. And then the three mayoral candidates for the city of Vicksburg, who will follow at around seven o'clock. Now, what we're going to do tonight is we're going on the honor system, we're not timing anyone, we're trying to get good information out to you, the voters, who will vote next Tuesday, June 8, at your respective polling place. We'd appreciate it if no one would monopolize the conversation. I'm sure both of you are are easy going, folks, and you're not going to do that.

...(laughs)...

Then we're going to go back and forth. We'll have some questions from The Vicksburg Post. We'll also have questions here from us at V 105.5 and Newstalk 107.7. If you could try to keep the answers fairly brief candidates if you would, and the question sometimes are going to be for both of you, and sometimes the question may be for you individually. Okay, I want to first start out with our two candidates as we suffer through a rainstorm out there as we speak. But we want to start out with our two candidates for South Ward Alderman. They are Miss Vicki Bailey and the incumbent Alex Monsour. Okay. First I want to start out and have you tell us a little bit about each of you so people sort of know who you are. And you may think "Well some people do", but a lot of people may not. So we're gonna start out with Vicki Bailey. Vicki, tell us a little bit about you. What you've done over the past few years and and maybe why you're running for South Ward Alderman.

Hi, Vicksburg. I'm Vickie Bailey here. I'm a 53 year old lifelong residence of the city of Vicksburg. I come from group roots. Baitie Bailey, a lifelong resident of this community, hard worker. And I have those same genes as well as work ethics. And growing up in Vicksburg, as well as working Vicksburg compels me to continue to step forward and speak out. Vicksburg has a lot of things. Components, that's makes us a thriving, prosperous city. And I just want to capitalize on that. Being that I've worked in management for over, what, 40 some years of my life. I worked at the City of Vicksburg for 24 years. I worked for a Jackson State University as the Senior Business Director. I worked for the Warren County Sheriff's Department as the a jailer. I've actually worked for the city well, the Vicksburg Warren School district as a tennis coach. I'm a licensed ordained minister. And I just love the city of Vicksburg. I'm an avid athlete, I don't play much now. I just want to see the city flourish. I, once again, I have a vested interest in this community, I have grandchildren, and a lot of my, well, two of my children, they're trying to leave now and a lot of family members have left Vicksburg, and we don't have to leave Vicksburg in order to make a living and to be able to grow old gracefully so with that in mind, I chose to step forward and seek office and be the voice of the people.

Thank you, Vickie Bailey. She is one of our candidates for South Ward Alderman. The North Ward Alderman seat has already been won by Michael Mayfield. He'll go back into office. The other incumbent in this race is Alex Monsour. And, Alex, tell us a little bit about what you've done, how you ended up getting your seat four years ago and where you come from, so-to-speak.

Yes, sir. Thank you. First of all, I'm a father of two, Kennedy and Zane here in Vicksburg. I have been a small business owner. I've been a state representative in Jackson representing Warren, Sharkey and Issaquena county. I represented for 10 years. I left the legislature two years short of my term to run for the City of Vicksburg Alderman spot in the South Ward. The reason by that was, we were, we'd gone through four years of less than 60 new jobs in Warren County, in Vicksburg, and I just thought it was inadequate. We had a lot of arguing going on; a lot of fighting. So I decided I would come to the City of Vicksburg, try to bring my expertise of being Chairman of Ports, Harbors and Airports. I served on Judiciary B, I served on Transportation, I served on Gaming, Tourism, Juvenile Justice; served on a lot of committees. Had a lot of experience and met a lot of people. I have actually served under, or for, the three sitting leaders of our state would be the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and the Speaker of the House. I want to take this knowledge even further, and relationships even further that we have, because relationships are important. And when you're trying to recruit business here, and trying to bring them here, you need to know who to go talk to, you don't need to be spending all your time trying to figure it out. Well, we've already, we already know who to go talk to over there, and we go straight to the top. So with all that being said, there are other things we need to do in the City of Vicksburg. We know that. But we've done a lot. We've created, we've helped create over 800 jobs in Warren County, in Vicksburg, by working with EDF, Chamber of Commerce, Board of Supervisors, the City, Board, and Aldermen, and the state and the federal government, and we have all those contacts. So what I would like to do is just continue on and grow past what we've done here. We've had over $210 million invested in our city and in our county in the last four years. So we just want to carry that further and and do all we can for the City of Vicksburg.

Okay, Alex Monsour, thank you very much. And Vickie Bailey, we're gonna go back to you. Quickly, what is unique about your experience that would make you the best choice to lead Vicksburg for South Ward Alderman for the next four years.

First and foremost, that would be management skills. Basically, now Monsour keeps, he's he's talking about the ad ad that he's been in legislative, legislative, as well as, as opposed to being local government are two different entities. The local government is basically the management of your day-to-day operations of what goes on into in the City of Vicksburg. Management skills is a key. People relationship is key. Yes, relationships with other elected officials on the state and federal level, those are great things. But if you don't know what your constituents are plaquing with their issues, and being able to go in and manage the day-to-day operations of a city, that's fruitless. And being able to go in and inspect what we expect, being out there in the midst of the people, voicing there issues. That's what is gonna take and having a heart for and the compassion for the people, is what it's gonna take to move Vicksburg progressively forward so that decisions that are being made is made for the entire city, not just a select few. Now good things are happening. Yeah. But there's so much more that can be done, this should be done. That's not being done.

Well, let's narrow this down a little bit. And then you can answer this question, since you sort of brought this up. What do you think is the biggest current problem in the South Ward? If we can talk about more in the city a little while and we'll have all three of these candidates running for mayor and that who's technically, I guess, controlling the city but with help from the two aldermen. But what do you think is the biggest current problem in South Ward? And Alex, I'm gonna come back to you to answer that same question.

Ok.

One of the biggest issues is there's no voice in our community. They talk about recreation, we say we have a lot of recreation going on in the City of Vicksburg. Now. We say that now, it's not that we say, we have 18 parks, Alex say we have 17 we have 18. There's an additional one that they put in, in Kings. So we have 18 parks in the city of Vicksburg, only 4 of those are in located in the South Ward. And out of that, there's no recreation going on in that area there is, I mean, the condition of the community where I once, you lived as well, is degressing. Crime is running rapid in the area, people call an ask for police presence and/or surveillance in the area. Their voices are not being heard. And once again, it's gonna take an individual to get out and meet with the people on a regular consistent basis and bring solutions, assess and address the issues that your constituents are having.

Okay, so I gather from you, Vicki, you think the two current problems are lack of parks and recreation and problem with policing? Is that what you're telling us?

I mean, those I mean, those are just two. I mean beautification in the area. I mean cleanness. All of that is associated in the South Ward.

Okay. Let's go back to Alex Monsour. Alex, tell us in what you think of the current biggest problems, and are they different from what she said? And if so, why would that be?

...well, first of all, let me respond to the conditions and beautification of our city. When I got here, back in 2017...

...(whispered) Oh my goodness...

...grass was four foot tall here, garbage was all over the road. We'd lost our pride in the City of Vicksburg. And it was just very unsafe on traffic. It was very unsafe on our public parks because people were out there in tall grass. I remember when I first got here, tall grass, I remember seeing people sitting on top of the bleachers, and the grass was growing up into the people sitting. And so when I got here, I took it over, because Parks and Recreation, along with maybe two other departments are your moneymakers in your city. And now, if you take Parks and Rec, and you do it right, and you invest the money, which we have, we've invested a bunch of money into the recreational facilities for the girl softball, which has grown in leaps and bounds, a million dollar investment into a tennis facility, which we don't charge children. We don't charge them to come play. They get to play for free in the City of Vicksburg. In fact, I talked to Rick Shields about it. He's got rackets up there for them. So when you talk about not having beautification and picking up the trash, I want you to go ride around Vicksburg today. Look at the Interstate, look at the city, the grass is cut, the garbage is being picked up. And we need to do something about that garbage too, because we got people that actually throw garbage out all the time. And we're talking about doing that now, with using our cameras, so we can catch some of these people doing that because as soon as we go out there and pick it up. They're throwing it right back down on the ground. And as far as the answering of calls to the people, when they answer in my office, I have a 48-hour response time. And about 99% of them get that 48-hour response time to know when we're going to do it. What we're going to do. And I'm the one that personally calls these people when they call in. But I'll tell you what we do have to do. We've got to do something about getting more police officers. We've got to do something about paying our police officers well. We just have to. This last four years, we've been hit with three different disasters- COVID, Icestorm, tornadoes. And I mean, we have been under the gun. Budgets have been cut because of the lack of revenue, or the fact that we didn't want to bust the bank, which Vicksburg did a lot of good things doing that, because we actually came out of it almost unscathed. And it was because of the preparation we did. But the number one thing in the South Ward is infrastructure. You got to fix these roads. We can't do it 4 million at a time. And we have an answer for that. I think what we need to do is, and I've talked to the mayor about it, is to take the internet sales diversion, and take it and bond against it. And then that way, we can get a lot of money at one time to do what we got to do because doing it $4 million at a time is just not going to fix the problem. So we're working on different avenues how to go get a lot of money and we got the infrastructure bill coming in from DC so we hope to use that too.

This is a Meet the Candidates Political Forum with Alex Monsour and Vickie Bailey, the South Ward Alderman candidates on V105.5/NewsTalk 107.7 and in cooperation with The Vicksburg Post. We had a listener call in earlier this afternoon and he said "Well, my property taxes now are already too high. What would you do to keep them from going higher?" Vickie Bailey...

...what would you do to keep them going...

...um hmm, from going higher...

...once again, effective and efficient use of your taxpayer dollars now. If we use our tax dollars now, we don't have to exorbitant people property taxes. But if we continue to do nothing, and we continue to let things get out of hand, that's when your property taxes are going to go up until we address the issues that are affecting this community. We're gonna, at one point of time, we will be increasing taxes because we're doing nothing and things are getting worse. And that's when the price tag goes up and up.

And Alex Monsour, what's your position on this?

What my position has been for the last four years. This current board has not raised property taxes, nor have we raise property taxes in the City of Vicksburg since 1986. And as long as I sit on that board, we're not gonna raise property taxes because I was given the tutelage to know that you do it by sales tax. And by the way, our sales tax revenue is more than it's ever been. We're not going to raise property taxes. And when Haley Barbour told me that years ago, before I got out of the legislature, he said "Son, don't raise property taxes, do it with your sales tax." And we're being fiscally responsible, we balanced the budget, $30 million budget, four years in a row, did not, not one time raise the property taxes in the City of Vicksburg.

Mark, can I, re-elaborate on that. Now, he said that we're not, now that's the whole key. Now, that's my policy. And that's my drive, that's my desire is not to raise property taxes. But in the rate that we are going, we can sit here and say all day that we're not going to raise property taxes. But at the end of the day, if we don't do something now, a prime example is our infrastructure. Because we haven't done due diligence. It has to be done. Unless we're gonna leave that burden for our for our children and our children's children. Until we get step up as a community iand assess and address what we have now, taxes will go up. That's why we have to have effective and efficient use of city taxpayer dollars right now. Now, he could sit here and say all day, that he don't want to do it. Of course, you don't want to do nobody wants to do it. But at the end of the day, if we don't do due diligence, it will happen.

Okay. I know there's some other questions, Emily Tillman...

...Can I rebut that?...

...is with us..

...Come on back...

..Okay, we're gonna let Alex respond to her and then we're going to see..

Well, yeah because I would just like to say, she said, we're gonna have to raise taxes. I don't even let that come out of my mouth.

You don't have to let it come out, it's gonna happen.

...that shouldn't be an option. What should be the option is that you're fiscally responsible, but you can't sit there and say its going out of hand when we're balancing the budget every year, year-after-year and not raising property taxes....

You're balancing the budget, but nothing is happening in the City of Vicksburg. We're degressing, sir.

Well, you must not be looking, Vickie...

No, you are being oblivious to what's in our, it's a prime example in the face. Come on! Don't be oblivious! Let's talk truth between a round, round, round table discussion. Let's be true. We can talk fluff all day. And fluff is out. People can see what's going on in the City of Vicksburg. We're degressing. People are leaving, Monsour...

They're leaving everywhere, Vickie, right now...

...I'm a tell you....

..but let me tell you this right now...

...but we shouldn't have to...

...but you can say that we're not doing anything in the City of Vicksburg..

...I didn't say, who said anything?..

...You just said we didn't do anything in Vicksburg...

....I said effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars...

...we're...

...but you're being oblivious to what's actually going on, Monsour.

Tell me how we're not effectively spending the tax dollars. Tell me.

....you tell me...

...no, you tell me. You're the one that just got through saying that...

...but what are you? How are you spending 'em?....

We're spending them just the way we are supposed to, by the law, not increasing the taxes, but at the same time, increasing the quality of life here in Vicksburg, by having the new tennis facility, by having all the ballfields...

...whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa...

...listen, listen..

...okay, come on...

Let me get through talking and you talk...So we're doing everything we can for the families in the City of Vicksburg to have the venues to do for the children. Now you can sit there ..

okay..

...and say we're not but all you have to do is ride around Vicksburg...

...oh?..

...and look at what we've done...

...What have you done?...

...And. But wait a minute now...

...okay..

You can't do all this and not mentioned jobs and industry

...Of course!...

which we have done. And but I hadn't heard you say one thing about jobs and industry. You've been talking about "give me this, give me that"..

..Monsour. No I didn't say give me anything. First and foremost. The tennis facility was already in place before you got here, sir...

...Absolutely not...

Yes, it was.

No, it wasn't.

I was part of, I was part of that as well.

..do you, vickie..

Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Monsour.

..Vickie, You can't sit...

...Monsour...

....here and lie to the people....

Monsour! I played tennis. I play tennis. I'm a tennis coach...

..hhh, so do I...

...Ha! I haven't seen you play yet. But I hear you I hear you play. We're gonna see I love to challenge you to but that's not the issue right now. The issue right now is that you said you brought a million dollars to this tennis facility you had nothing to do with that. That was already....

....Ma'am, I brought eight hundred, $837,000

..Monsour..

...to a brand new facility that is second in the state...

..okay it shouldn't be, it should be number one, but at the same time...

...The only reason it's not is Ole Miss, up there at Oxford..

...No, no, no, come on, come on..

...They got, they got more courts then we got..

...You gonna let me speak? You gonna let me speak?..

...go ahead...

...now you say you brought 800 Now you said at the last debate that it was already there. You didn't bring that there. It was already in the making picture. No, no, no, I was part of it, sir. I was there when the things were in in progress, no, no! and....

...Well I guess you need to go back to the before and after pictures...

..Monsour, I got, I got a videotape of it. Because I, I, I filmed it. I was a part of the whole process before you got here that was already in the making. It's amazing how you taking credit for things that you did not do. I don't mind, I don't mind that because you came in at the time when everything was was was on the move. But you had nothing to do with that, sir.

I hired the architect to come in here and design the new facility.

...Oh my goodness, it was already in the making, sir.

..Who said it?..

I was up there. I was there. When Vicksburg first had the tennis pump. Well whelp basically when it first started happening, we only had seven courts. We've been trying to get tennis courts here for the City of Vicksburg for years, sir. And during that time, when I was out, when I was out, pre uh uh what's the word I want to say improving the parks of the City of Vicksburg I led that project also you had nothing to do with that either and...

...laughs..

and for the sake of time, I was the one that up there with Alderman Thompson at the time, we could not have uh uh the uh spike, what was it, the spike tournament, we couldn't have the spike tournament because of the bathroom. You, you, that was already, we already tried to get it. And we knew that it was already in the making. He had already started making preparations to get that particular grant...

...But he, but he didn't do it...

Yes, he did. Yes did, sir!

...O, okay, uh...

...You had nothing to do with that...

...oh, okay. well, it happened under my tenure...

...Okay, well this has been an interesting discussion in tennis courts, but let's get some..

...once again..

...Yeah, candidates, we have some questions that The Vicksburg Post would like to ask, if that's okay...

...I got one, ewwww, let me, let me...

Yeah, let's let's go to some from The Vicksburg Post and then...

...Let's, let's move on...

....Emily, you've got some other questions yourself. And then we're gonna get...

...credit for so ewww...

...into some future plans for things here. This is a strenous debate here about the South Ward. And we're going to get...

...laughs....

...back to some more questions now. Emily Tillman and Catherine Hadaway and Anna Guizerix here from The Vicksburg Post.

Right. From The Vicksburg Post, I have a question and I'll start with you, Miss Bailey. What are your plans to deal with vacant buildings and houses in the South Ward?

Once again, all we have to do is enforce the ordinance that already on the books. That's where crime is breeding from. That's where the cleaning is. And it degrades the degression of the community is coming from. We're not being effective, efficient, effective and efficient use of our taxpayer dollars, our tax property taxes and everything is going down. We don't have management the day-to-day managent. Now here the mayor is going out and getting all the money. Yes, he is. I was in that's a great thing. But you need to have team members that to be on the team that's gonna help manage the day-to-day operation, which is not being done.

Right. Your rebuttal, Mr. Monsour.

Yeah, when I got here we had, we had almost 70% of the buildings downtown that were vacant. Now it's less than 3%. I think our plans working. And what we do is we make it business-..

...(inaudible)...

...friendly, we make it business friendly for people to come in tax wise, and come downtown, and build those buildings, and put a business on the bottom and put apartments up top. If you don't believe me, all you got to do is just try to rent something in Vicksburg, it's nothing out there. Now. These other houses and stuff. We got a blight elimination program, we've been working that. We've been working it as fast as we can work it, because we're limited on the funds that we can have to do that. But I go around South Ward all the time I ride every week, if I see something out there that's got a blight to it. I call and tell community development "We got to get it done". And they're doing it. But they can't do it at a pace in which they can eliminate it all. But we are working in that direction. Not only that, but we've actually convinced some contractors to come to Vicksburg and start building houses that are around the $200 - $260,000 range, because people can't afford to buy the $400 and $500,000. So we're working all these programs at one time. And Vicksburg is is you got if you own property in the City of Vicksburg, you're making money. You are making money because everything's for rent and everything, the houses are selling the market here is unbelievable. If you can't, you can't say you got all these problems, and then say we're not working on getting rid of them. When we got here in 2017. It was horrible. Now just go downtown and look at Vicksburg, look at downtown Vicksburg, you talked about not beautifying something. If you're not proud of enough to say Vicksburg is beautiful, I don't know what to tell you.

Sir, I never said Vicksburg was not, was not beautiful. I say cleaningness is beautiful. But right now we're not clean around the City of Vicksburg because we don't have a manager that's going to go out and inspect what we expect as citizens.

Now we just don't have people that know not to throw trash on the ground.

...Well, that is true also...

....I can't do anything about that. That's a family issue...

...It's a family issue?

...That's right..

...Hey, like with what I said "I'm not your momma"...

...you gotta have 'em, you gotta train them..

..we got to bring pride back into the city. And right now. Hey

...And it's coming...

...Yeah, of of course, when I get there...

...Okay, Emily, uh...

...but at the same time now you said...

Miss Bailey, actually this question might go into what you're talking about...

...come on (clap)...

....this next question. What are your plans to curb litter in the South Ward?

In the South Ward? What I've always said, a litter, a litter campaign. Once again, when you, knowledge evokes change, when you learn better, you do better. And then once again, No, nobody should be throwing trash. But at the same time until we let everybody know we're gonna aggressively go after this and put a campaign out there and have routine cleaning for the City of Vicksburg, routine trash pickup. Now we have a photo op downtown Vicksburg, taking pictures and things of the sort and people going out. No, we need to do a real trash cleanup on a regular consistent basis throughout this community. Recycling as well as beautification. I mean, that's where our churches coming in, if the community to come together and we and we instill a sense of pride as to what we have here. And what that all comes with. We're not unified. You over here, you're here, but let's unify and let's come out churches come outside of those four walls. And let's take take it take back all community and do what's right by each other.

All right, what about what do you say Mr. Monsour?

I just wonder why they weren't doing it already?

...Of course...

...I mean, you say your pastor.

...A yes...

...Where was your church at?...

...I'm out there. We're out there. Where are you? What, which church you go to? Are you out there?

Let me tell you what we do...

...no no no I didn't ask you that, go ahead...

...what we do is this...

...okay...

...We we make the people and community development...

...You make them?...

...and..no, community service, go out there and pick this trash up. But you know what though at the end of the day, it's going to take us putting units out there with cameras on and giving tickets to these people that are throwing the trash on the ground, because it's not the city's fault that people throw trash on the ground. It's our responsibility to go out there and try to clean it up. But people that are doing wrong, need to be held accountable. It can't just keep on piling on and say, if we did we'd have a whole city full of people picking up paper all the time. We can't do that because we've got to work every department....

....of course...

But I will say this, we've already got a campaign to go do that.

...You do?...

...Yes, we do...

...Why? Why now?...

...because we've already had

...you said you started...

....the meetings. Do you watch the meetings?

....No, no I said 2017, you said you should've started [inaudible]...

Do you watch the meetings?

....Not really because it's alot of stuff but go head...

...okay well there you go. But anyway, so we've already said, we were going to go out there and put the units out there and start implementing...

...When? When'd you...

...this $250 trash fine...

...When did you start that? ...

...You got to make sure it's all legal...

...When did you start it?

...Nancy, Nancy's doing the legal work on it now...

...But, Alderman Monsour, as a legislator...

....you don't pick up trash out the legislature...

...No no no, you see, you see, once again, you want a be funny...

...I ain't being funny, I'm just telling you...

...Okay okay, but at this point, sir. There are other cities already that has a litter campaign, and they have federal funding that's helped that's helped funding these things. Why are we doing that?

Why don't we enforce the law and make people...

...that is...

....stop throwing out trash?

...that is tr...

...[inaudible]

...why look for federal funding when it's what tax payers pay for?...

...No, no, no, no. You just said we're gonna buy the trash cans...

...I didn't say nothing about the trash cans. I said pick up the paper...

...No, you, didn't you say you're going buy trash receptacles? Did you did not say that?...

...no, I said I said what we're gonna do is put the units out there to take the pictures.

...I want to ask this follow up...

...once again funding...

...question here about, I want to ask this question in about cameras in what you were saying, Alex with the cameras patrolling some of this [inaudible], now I've been told though by some city officials in the past, the problem is collecting the fines even if you impose them. So they say "Well, it may not do any good". So there may, this is a another problem possibly...

...No it's...

...you talking to her or me?...

...I was talking to you...

...Okay. That is that is a problem of trying to collect the fines. You know right now, we got community, community service department, that is supposed to use people that go out there and and pay off their fines. And we can use them picking up the trash, which we we just there's just not enough bodies out there to do it. I get a call. We go to one spot in town, we go to another spot. But we're going to implement the tickets. Now. It's up to us to go out there and enforce it. That's where you law enforcement comes into play. And that's where you judges come into play. We got to start getting at it no tolerance level with these people with the trash and other things.

..I have a question...

...Can I, can I ask...

...I'm sorry...

...Go right ahead...

...I have a question that came in from Facebook specifically, I'm sorry, Ms. Bailey, she asks why you would be opposed to a pickleball courts being built...

...never said that. never said that I was opposed to being having a pickleball built. The option on the table was we could have the pickleball. Now pickleball, I started playing myself. It's a fun game. I played tennis. But we had an option to have a Pickleball for $20,000 or spend $250 plus $300,000. And effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars was to put it at Bovina. We have a new golf pro, and he's out doing some great thing we said we collaborating for the City of Vicks, it would've cost $20,000 to build it out here 8 courts instead of taking the area and taking up on a baseball baseball field and put courts down there. We need additional tennis courts. We have three high schools that play tennis out here, plus the general public. And we talk about being a number one tennis facility where we can host tournaments, additional courts and or bubble would'd been more advantageous for people that play tennis. I never said we didn't want a pickleball, I love it. I would love to play indoor as well. I've never said that. I did not want to pickleball courts, but I'm saying effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

In coordination with The Vicksburg Post this is Political Forum on Newstalk 107.7 WVBG Vicksburg and WVBG FM Redwood Vicksburg V 105.5. Now we have pretty well exhausted our alotted time for this...

...Nooooo!...

...We have one more question, Mark...

...particular situation here but...

...No no no why stop it? come on, not yet...

...We can continue on for just a few more minutes...

...Thirty more minutes!...

...But let me let me ask what about our mayoral candidates? Have they shown on all three of them gotten here yet?

...They hadn't got here yet, thirty more minutes....

...They're, they're here but I think Mr. Flaggs was stepping out for just a moment. So and I have one more question from The Vicksburg Post I'd like to ask...

...Yeah, yeah go right ahead...

...Am I, am I going to get a rebuttable on that pickleball court?..

...Sure, go ahead...

Okay, first of all, Vickie, so you want us to take city dollars and put them out in the county? Which makes no, huh?...

...no, I said collaboration, sir...

...no, you said...

...I said 10 and 10...

....Vickie, Vickie, you gonna let me answer this...

...Ms. Bailey, let Mr. Monsour speak...

...But you but you coming but you coming at me incorrect...

You're telling me that they could build those pickleball courts in the county for $20,000, is that what you're saying?

...Yes, sir...

Okay, I, I guess you can say anything you want to. But we actually had four bidders on that...

...On which part, sir?...

...on the whole pickleball court?...

...No, no, no...

...And...

...build it build a building up building on a site that already has the core foundation or building it from scratch?...

...That's. No, ma'am. You can't do that because...

...Yes you can but go head...

...because all of the courts are different. They're almost a half a court. So therefore, your poles and everything are not even set, right. Besides that. Let me get through this right here...

...So now you're an engineer?...

...so now, she says we can put it up out in the county for $20,000, which is bogus...

....It's not, 10 and 10 matching grants...

...because you can't show me that and we have to go through...

...(whispered) Ms. Bailey, let him speak please...

...we have to go through...

...but he's lying...

...we we have to go through all kinds of legal matter in order to spend Vicksburg dollars in the county and then we wouldn't have any jurisdiction over the over the courts. The county would be telling us what we could do. But besides that...

...it's all about collaboration...

...okay...

...and joint venture, sir...

... now, let me get through. So the reason....

...Vicksburg Warren County, right?...

...Are you going to let me get through?...

...I'm gonna let you get through but you but but but stop doing all the fluffing, talk talk folks straight...

...I'm not talking...

...yes you are...

...I'm talking the facts of what we've done..

...no you're not, you fluffing...

...Well, if you're not gonna let me answer the question,

...ask the question, Monsour...

...okay, the reason we're building the pickleball...

...(scoffs)...

...courts in Vicksburg, is because they're a revenue source, along with the tennis facility, along with all the ballfields for the kids. They bring people into Vicksburg for tournaments, for tournament play, it's proven. And that's how we get people to come in here and spend tax dollars here. So we can use the sales tax revenue, instead of raising property taxes.

...and those and you, and you, those same 812 jobs that you brought here are county jobs that we're, that you're getting those numbers from as well...

...the 812 jobs were...

...Warren Warren Vicksburg Warren...

...Vicksburg and Warren...

...okay 'den! same thing!...

...Well, ok so Vicksburg's in Warren County and Warren County is in Vicksburg...

...Same thing, same scenario, sir...

....So what I'm trying to tell you is, you can't get these jobs unless you got everybody working in the same line, especially at MDA. They made the deal with us on the $200,000 for them putting up $2 million to get 450 of those jobs. The city did that!...

...Okay!...

...Well, then it's just...

...so what are you talking about?...

...these days it's whatever you...I don't know what you talking about?

what you're talking about, honey?

...Okay....

...(laughs) this is interesting! Naw, we got started, come on, we gotta do this again...

...This is a, this is a very interesting discussion,

...because there's still a whole lot of fluff because we still haven't got to the root of the problem...

...well I guess we have a few more minutes, let me ask [inaudible] ...

...I don't know the word "fluff"...

...or the issues...

Emily, do you have any other questions. I have a couple more.

Yeah. I've got my last question from The Vicksburg Post here. Okay. All right. Ms. Bailey, what are your thoughts on Mayor Flaggs' proposed Homicide and Gang Unit? Please try to keep it brief. And then we'll come to you, Mr. Monsour.

Homicide and Gang Unit. Of course, that's going to it's going to increase our efforts in public safety. I'm down, Yes, 100%. We need more. Our police department, it just needs a once again, we need more officers and getting them the necessary training and other avenues to combat crime. Yes, that's 100%. I mean, psst that's a no brainer.

Thank you. Mr. Monsour.

Yes, absolutely. I talked to the mayor about it. Yeah. Anytime we can increase, you know, coverage out there and take care of, especially situations like we got with the gangs, and the homicide. Yeah, we need to do that. But I will also say this, if we don't get the pay up for the officers, which we need to do, we got to find the money, then we've got to do that. And I will tell you for just public safety purposes across the board, fireman, officers, we got to pay them more. And we have to get more officers here. And I think that has a lot to do internally. But that'd be a situation we have to take up.

All right. Thank you so much. Mark, you got another question.

I was gonna ask and a listener asked this question about Vicksburg's current population now is less than it was in 2000. If either one of you have any ideas of what is causing this decline and maybe what we can do about it for the future. Miss Bailey.

What you see going on in Vicksburg now. Economic Development, infrastructure. litter control, litter. Just we have so many of the right components to be a thriving city, and people can't make it here. They can't afford to live here. And we don't have a visioner or visionary nor a person that's going to be compassionate enough to go for and address the Issue, assess them, address them and find avenues and resources that's going to come in and do what's necessary to take us to the level that we can and should be. We're a diamond in the rough, I've been saying that for years, and we get people coming in and time and time again. Now, I go back to say this. Monsour said that he's been in legisly he has all of these contacts and all of these these these relationships. Prior to him coming to Vicksburg, how many how much how much money did you send to this city? And how much money have you gotten? Not Not Mayor Flaggs? How much money have you gotten? What have you done since you've been here?

Okay, I'll give to you right now.

...No, no...

...Now, wait, you asked me...

...Not Mayor Flaggs. But I want you to...

...Are you scared I'm gonna answer it, Vickie?

...no no no No, I want to, I want you to be clear...

...I'm clear, I'm reading it right here...

...I don't want you holding on to his coat tail, don't hold on to his coat tail, I want you standing on your own two feet...

here's the facts...

...Alright let him, let him, let him answer...

...here's the facts...

....my question and then your question then Ms. Bailey and see how this turns out. And then we're gonna wrap this up. But okay, Alex Monsour answer her question, then I want to...

...Can I rebut whatever he's coming out with?..

...get your answer to the question. Well, we're going to...

...You won't want to rebut it, you can look at it cuz' this is fact. Alright, so since march of 2017, which when we took over and we had the election, we've had 6 new companies locate to Vicksburg, 4 company expansions. And then right now, we already have signed for the city waterfront improvements. We are working on an $8 million expansion for the city airport and we have a new Mississippi River Port that we're working on now. Now, we're counting on federal dollars for that, but we're working on it...

...Can I see it?...

...Naw, I'm fixing to read you the rest of it.

...Can I see it?...

Here we go. Sports Force Parks $23 million. You said I didn't have anything to do with that? I'm the one that ran through the legislature and got the bill done so we could do this.

...Fluff, you had nothing to do with that...

...So when you start that, that's a... and the thing was built completely underneath my, you asked me what happened when I got here?...

...It was already in the making!...

...it it was nothing but a dirt hill when I got here. Now its built.

...Sir!..

....Now, wait a minute, we got MCITY, the technology...

...you taking, you taking credit for something you didn't do...

MCITY, down there, which we work with everybody on that to make sure we get these undergraduate degrees downtown, five universities getting undergraduates downtown, it'll be open at the end of this year. Alright, South Frontage Road Expansion $8 million dollars, you know who got that? I did that before I got out the legislature. $18 million to get the Frontage Road fixed. Alright now...

...Taking credit for something you didn't do...

...Total economic impact since I've been here is , since I've been here ,with the mayor and board of aldermen...

...with the mayor, not you..

....since I've been here, I can't run it by myself. 812..

...teamwork...

...812 new jobs...

...name the six, name the...

...annual...

...eight jobs that you said that you've, the six jobs that you brought here, name name them...

...The what??..

...Name the six jobs that you said came here on on?...

...six?...

...Yeah, you said six..

...The six companies?

...Name 'em...

Industrial Wood Products. Vicksburg Forestry.

...Nooooo!...

Love Transportation Center, Unified Brands. Winfield United. Eco Pak. There you go. There's the companies. Now, you had...

...Unified, oh my goodness...

...you want to know the 4 company expansions? Four company expansions- Vicksburg Forest Products, Tyson Foods, Golding Barge Lines, Vicksburg Plant Foods...

...Already here, sir...

..Now...

...already here, sir..

...one more time, those 812 jobs equate to a $32 million annual payroll. You know what that is? $39,000 a job. Yes, ma'am...

...Fluff...

...Do the math...

...Fluff...

Economic impact projects for Vicksburg $148 million major projects got another $62 million dollars in development projects happening right now for a total impact of $210 million invested in our city in four years while I was here.

...Fluff...

Okay, so...

...Oh my goodness...

...we got you all warmed up for our...

...This is so messed up...

...mayoral candidates...

Yeah all our mayoral candidates are here and ready.

...to hear shortly. We got them here. We'd like to thank Ms. Vicki Bailey and...

...Mark, we got to do this again...

...Mr. Monsour...and, well the and coming up June 8th and so we only have

....Well even the 8th, hey throughout the year ....

...(laughs) one more, have one more...

...thoroughout the year these conversations needs to be had...

...One more week and we'll have the election and of course, we at our radio station and I'm sure that the newspaper who always does a great job in reporting what is going on The Vicksburg Post, they will be doing this too. We'd appreciate, we do appreciate The Vicksburg Post...

...oh my...

...to joining us tonight contributing great questions and they will put up some of the information that you're hearing tonight in case you missed some of this. What you've been listening to is Vickie Bailey, who is opposing incumbent Alex Monsour for the Alderman post for the South Ward of the City of Vicksburg. Whatever you do, you got these two fine candidates running against each other, go out and vote for one of them or the other, the one that you think would do the best job for South Ward Alderman and who will work with the other candidates, whoever the mayor will be which we will determine that in a week or either maybe by the end of our program tonight, You never know. But also we will have the North Ward Alderman who has been reelected Michael Mayfield working with the Mayor, whoever that will be and the South Ward Alderman, whoever that turns out to be. But don't forget to go vote next Tuesday...

...oh my....

... at your respective polling place. thank both of you for being here....

Hey, and Mark, I'm gonna interject, I think I want to let them take have a closing statement about 60 seconds. Okay. And I, no one talk while the other's talking and you get a 60 second closing statement please. I want to start with you, Ms. Bailey.

Alright Vicksburg we have an opportunity to move Vicksburg progressively forward. If you want a South Ward Alderperson that will actually work for you, then vote Vickie Bailey. If you want a South Ward Alderperson that will represent your issues, then vote for Vickie Bailey. If you want a South Ward Alderperson that will be transparent, then vote for Vickie Bailey. If you want a South Ward Alderperson that will keep you engaged, then vote for Vickie Bailey. If you want a South Ward Alderperson that will be your voice, then vote for Vickie Bailey. And together we can and we will have a clean and a safe Vicksburg where people can live and work, raise children, grow old gracefully, and enjoy recreation entertainment, and then we will finally be a tourist destination, which we've always should have been on June 8. I'm asking for your vote. Vote Vicki Bailey.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Monsour.

Yes, first of all, thank you guys for putting this on. And secondly, I just want to say, if you want to continue the growth that's been happening in the city of Vicksburg over the last four years, then you need to just stay the course, we have proven that we can make this city grow, we have proven that we take care of your tax dollars. That we've got an economic engine working in Vicksburg, while everybody else was going under and the cities in the city in the state of Mississippi, couldn't make their payroll and couldn't make their tax dollar revenue. We never lost it. We had it all the way through. It's because of what we've done over the last four years to keep the city running in a time where you have to be calm and make it happen. So on June the 8th, I ask for your vote, to make Vicksburg move forward, and to have the type of jobs that we can look back and say our children don't have to move away, and we don't have to drive eight hours to go see 'em. So I want to thank everybody for this, during this campaign time. And please go out and vote. Exercise your right to vote. Vote Alex Monsour on June the 8th. Thank you.

...Great. Thank you so much candidates for coming in this evening. taking the time out of your day. We appreciate it. I know our listeners appreciate it as well and your your constituents....

...Thank you, 105.5...

...Yes, absolutely. Y'all have a good evening...

...Thank you...

....Be careful because I know it's rained out there...

...ok...

...wow...

Well, listeners we have wrapped up our town hall with the South Ward alderman candidates, first ever for this radio station here and in conjunction with The Vicksburg Post. We thank them for their input as well. And we thank our candidates for stopping by today. We're going to get our mayoral candidates in the room now we have George Flaggs Jr., Troy Kimble, and Darryl Hollingsworth. So just bear with us as we get them in here and we get everything set up.