Mayor-elect prepares with training session

Published 12:00 am Friday, June 19, 2009

Mayor-elect Paul Winfield was among an estimated 200 newly-elected mayors and aldermen from around the state who participated in a one-day training session sponsored by the Mississippi Municipal League in Jackson on Thursday.

“It’s been a really useful program,” Winfield said during a short break between speakers at the Old Capitol Inn in downtown Jackson. “It’s basically an informative session to let us know what resources are out there in the state that we should be using, and how all the various agencies work with one another. They’ve also been telling us a lot about the legal boundaries and how to stay inside them.”

Winfield was not the only young mayor-elect without any prior public service experience to attend the session. He said he had spoken early on with Parker Wiseman, the 28-year-old lawyer who won his first bid for public office in the hotly-contested Starkville mayoral race.  

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At 35 years old, Winfield — also a lawyer — is one of the youngest men to be elected mayor of Vicksburg and just the second African-American to take the city’s top job. Prior to running for mayor, he had never made a bid for elected office. Regardless, he won near-identical, landslide victories in both the May 5 Democratic primary and the June 2 general election.

Winfield avoided a runoff in the four-candidate primary by taking 61.61 percent of the 3,165 votes, and he beat two-time incumbent Mayor Laurence Leyens in the general election by getting 61.63 percent of the 6,876 votes.

The mayor-elect has been aided by a group of five unnamed advisers as he prepares to take over as mayor at his first board meeting July 7. His inauguration will be at 6 p.m. July 3 at the Vicksburg Convention Center. North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield and South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman both ran unopposed, and will also be inaugurated for their second and third terms, respectively.

Winfield said his immediate priorities as mayor will be to see the 2007 and 2008 audits completed and begin working on the budget for fiscal year 2009-10. Personnel issues will also be at the forefront, beginning with the police chief. One of Winfield’s few specific pledges during his campaign was to replace Police Chief Tommy Moffett. However, it is unclear if either alderman will support firing Moffett, who has been chief since 2001. Beauman has said he will support Moffett, while Mayfield said he is undecided.

Winfield announced this week he will stay on for his fifth term as Port Gibson city attorney after he takes over as Vicksburg mayor. Winfield said he has an obligation to the people of Port Gibson, and maintained it will not distract him from his duties as Vicksburg mayor. Winfield said he is paid $30,000 for his job in Port Gibson, while his mayoral salary will be $81,033. He resigned from his position as attorney for the Warren County Board of Supervisors last fall as he prepared to launch his campaign.

Established in 1931, the MML is a private association representing 288 municipalities in the state. Guest speakers at Thursday’s sessions included Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann.

Winfield said he plans to take advantage of more training sessions offered by MML at its annual conference July 13-16 in Biloxi.

“There’s going to be a series of classes offered that they highly advise us to attend, and I intend to sit in on all of them,” he said. “My learning curve might not be as long as some of the newer people, but I know I’ve still got a lot to learn.”

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com