City Hall served as a backdrop Monday for the first announced challenger to Mayor Laurence Leyens, as local attorney Paul E. Winfield kicked off his first campaign for public office with a message of change.

“We need a serious shift in leadership,” Winfield said, addressing about 50 supporters who included family, friends and a smattering of political office holders and appointees.

Winfield, currently the attorney for the Warren County Board of Supervisors and city attorney in Port Gibson, hit on issues such as housing and crime in his speech on the Walnut Street steps, offering no specifics but drawing cheers from onlookers.

“There’s a serious need for quality affordable housing in Vicksburg,” Winfield said, adding economic development initiatives should be focusing on job creation for young people. “Our administration will be inclusive of all the citizens of Vicksburg. We have to put our money where our mouth is so we all have the opportunity to succeed.”

With the announcement, Winfield, 34, is the second to publicly announce an intent to run for the city’s top job. In May, Leyens, 44, said he will seek a third term. In doing so, Leyens, said he will play up the progress made in public works, such as the continuing work to upgrade city infrastructure and recreation stemming from the second of two, multimillion-dollar bond issues approved in the last seven years. Leyens indicated he also would not stray from a pro-business stance, favoring investment in the downtown area and private investment to boost the housing stock.

No qualifying paperwork has been filed, according to the city clerk’s office. Warren County District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon, runner-up in a four-man field of hopefuls in the mayor’s race in general balloting in 2005, has said he expects to announce in July whether he will join the 2009 field of candidates.

Qualifying ends at 5 p.m. March 6, and primaries are set for May 5. The general election will be June 2 and the three elected city officials – the mayor and North and South Ward aldermen – will take office on July 1, 2009.

The mayor’s post pays $77,000 annually, while the aldermen are paid $61,600. Raises to take effect in 2010 and 2011 will lift the pay to $80,850 and $64,680.

City codes do not appear to prevent Winfield from becoming a candidate for mayor due to his jobs with other governing entities. Reached this morning, Warren County Board of Supervisors President Richard George said discussions on whether to retain Winfield during the campaign have not taken place.

“My only concern is we certainly don’t want to be viewed as having anything to do with interfering with municipal politics,” George said.

Port Gibson Mayor Fred Reeves was unavailable this morning.

Winfield graduated from Warren Central High School in 1991. He lettered in football there and at Ole Miss, where he majored in political science and played strong safety and linebacker in 1994 and 1995.

He comes to the contact sport of politics as anything but a novice to its inner workings. At Southern University in Baton Rouge, he earned a law degree alongside some of the deeply entrenched in Louisiana politics. Later, as attorney for Port Gibson and Warren County, he worked with issues both areas had at least a symbolic and sometimes a financial interest in, such as public transportation.

His activity in Democratic politics has outgrown local bounds as well, as he is one of two Vicksburgers selected as delegates pledged to Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Whisperings of his mayoral candidacy became louder in recent months, as Winfield’s consulting business extended to counseling political aspirants.

Recent civic activity included the boards of directors for the United Way of West Central Mississippi, Keep Vicksburg Warren Beautiful and RiverHills Bank. In addition, Winfield is a member of the St. Charles Chapter of the American Inns of Court, American Bar Association, Magnolia Bar Association, Louis A. Martinet Legal Society and Delta Theta Phi Law Fraternity. He is also a member of the “M” Club at Ole Miss.

His wife, Malissa, is a cancer survivor and also an attorney. She sits on the oversight commission for the NRoute transit system. They have a son, Paul Evans Winfield II.

His appointment to the job of handling legal issues for Warren County supervisors came a year after a political shift on the board in 2004, one that eventually led the board to oust former board attorney Randy Sherard. As a partner with his brother, Michael Winfield, in Winfield & Moran PLLC, Paul Winfield handled personal injury, wrongful death and some criminal cases in addition to government relations. Winfield’s caseload in the past year or so has included only work with local government and small businesses.

Winfield won the confidence of longer-tenured supervisors earlier this year to keep efforts intact to fend off potentially costly lawsuits with landowners over county subdivision and floodplain ordinances.

Despite his closeness to political circles, Winfield’s announcement kept up a theme of change throughout, including in his introduction by local insurance agent Gregory Carter.

“Come be a part of change,” Carter said, playing off a campaign theme used by Leyens in winning two terms at City Hall.