Vicksburg Warren Community Alliance has a goal of helping Vicksburg keep pace and being mentioned in the same breath with similar-sized Mississippi cities in terms of economic development, the group’s new executive director said Tuesday.

Addressing the Vicksburg Kiwanis, Scott Martinez spoke about goals, general and specific, toward which he said the group will work.

While some, such as high-performing schools and the city’s aesthetic appearance, will require the lead of other entities, Martinez incorporated them into an overall vision to make Vicksburg &#8220a great place to work, live and visit.”

Part of making the area an attractive place to work, Martinez said, is attracting the kinds of businesses that can push the area into the top 20 counties in the state in rates of employment.

Martinez said his early discussions with the Warren County Economic Development Foundation have identified 3,000 new jobs projected for Vicksburg and Warren County in the next year and a half, a figure that has been attributed in part to two new casino properties along the Mississippi River in that time.

&#8220With that, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state,” Martinez said, citing areas like Tupelo, Laurel, Hattiesburg, Tunica and Greenwood as areas that have showed economic gains due to retail growth and high-performing schools.

Figures for February showed an unemployment rate of 7.4 in Warren County, ranking 23rd out of 82 counties in the state in terms of lowest to highest.

Martinez, 35, was also named interim director of the Vicksburg- Warren County Chamber of Commerce last week, a position he said is part of an effort to examine the efficiency of both groups.

The Laurel native and holder of degrees from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi also touted the Alliance’s Tourism Council securing $40,000 in funds to conduct marketing and advertising of Vicksburg, calling it a move to help the VCVB’s &#8220transition” into its new contract with Compass Facility Management.

That effort is just &#8220a stopgap measure,” Martinez said, while any strategic marketing plans in the future must come from &#8220stakeholders in our tourism sector here and Compass.”

Martinez told Kiwanians that he expects his early forays into marketing the city, including one to the International Council of Shopping Centers trade show in New Orleans in February with the Alliance’s Commerce Council, to bear fruit in the area of attracting new retail outlets to Vicksburg.

&#8220That’s where the deals are done in retail development,” Martinez said.

Responding to questions about duplication of efforts on the part of all three groups, and one about any future moves to combine the Alliance with the Chamber of Commerce, Martinez said it was &#8220too premature to say what our final organizational structure is going to look like,” but added that having a single organization was effective in his prior jobs in economic development.

&#8220I think there’s an opportunity for the Alliance and the Chamber to start dialoguing,” Martinez said.

In February, Martinez filled the position that was held on an interim basis by Charlotte Koestler since August 2003.

Martinez was chosen in January from a field of 19 in- and out-of-state applicants to lead the self-formed coordinating organization between state and private agencies.

He spent seven years in economic development in Texas before coming to Vicksburg, serving as associate director of the Greater Conroe Economic Development Council, in suburban Houston, and as vice president of economic development with the Round Rock Chamber of Commerce, in suburban Austin.

The Vicksburg Warren Community Alliance has a 25-member board of trustees that represents 14 community member organizations.