At an informal meeting over ham sandwiches Tuesday, Warren County Board of Supervisors President Richard George recalled a stormy evening several years ago when he got an unexpected helping hand from a “city dweller” on Fisher Ferry Road.

At the meeting

Several officials attending Tuesday’s informal city-county meeting have ties to both:

• Mayor Paul Winfield was Warren County Board of Supervisors attorney from 2005 until 2008.

• North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield was Warren County District 2 Supervisor from 1996 until 2005.

• County Administrator John Smith was Vicksburg director of accounting from 1986 until 2004.

• City Clerk Walter Osborne was previously a longtime assistant in the Warren County Chancery Clerk’s Office.

Also attending were

• District 5 Supervisor and Board President Richard George.

• District 2 Supervisor William Banks.

• Executive Administrative Assistant to the Board of Supervisors Sandy Carpenter.

• City Accountant Doug Whittington

• City Chief of Staff Kenya Burks

• City Attorney Lee Davis Thames Jr.

“I was clearing a road in a storm in the middle of the night. I’m looking at this big block of wood that fell across the bridge and I’m fixing to have to saw it into little bitty blocks — because I raised cattle, I didn’t play football at Ole Miss — well, along comes Tarzan,” said George, drawing outbursts of laughter from the 10 who met at City Hall.

“Tarzan” was Mayor Paul Winfield, a former strong safety for Ole Miss, who at the time was the attorney for the board of supervisors.

“All of a sudden I got some guy tugging at the other end of this log and we ended up pitching the thing over the bridge rail,” George said.

“And we worked out there until 2 a.m.,” Winfield added.

City and county officials are hoping to exude that same spirit of cooperation as they enter times of reduced revenues and ballooning expenses. Both are working on budgets for fiscal year 2010 and both have expressed the need to adjust spending. 

Winfield pledged during his campaign to end what he called a “fractured” relationship between city and county officials, and on Tuesday, he and a handful of city and county officials took a first step by merely talking.

“The bottom line is everybody at this table is concerned about providing services to the public. It’s not about us and them, it’s about providing the services to the public and educating them about the challenges we face,” said Winfield.

Vicksburg residents pay property taxes levied by supervisors and the mayor and aldermen, while residents outside the incorporated area pay the supervisors’ levy. All residents pay the levy for the single, countywide public school district. Populations of the city, which is about 33 square miles, and the county, which is about 560 square miles, are roughly equal.

While the 1 1/2-hour meeting produced no substantive agreements, a variety of topics on which the city and county hope to work together — from bayou cleaning to emergency management operations — were discussed. All expressed the desire to continue the joint meetings.  

“We need to get back to our basic purpose for being here: public safety and services,” George agreed with Winfield. “If we can’t provide that, then all of us may as well go home right now. I believe we have the best opportunity to make some positive efforts.”

Contacted following the meeting, George said he was pleased and said the meeting produced more substantive talk than he had anticipated.

“I initially thought it would just be a meet and greet, but it turned into being more people involved and more issues discussed than I had initially thought, which was good,” he said.

George said he wouldn’t describe the county board’s relationship with former two-term Mayor Laurence Leyens as “fractured,” but he admitted the former mayor had, at times, overly high expectations of what the county could offer the city in the way of financial cooperation. On many fronts, Leyens insisted Vicksburg residents were being “double-dipped,” paying the same county taxes as county residents and then paying for services again through city taxes. Jail operations would be one example. City and county property owners pay equally into the jail budget, but the county owns the jail and charges the city a per-day rate when the jail is used to house people in custody of city police.

George also reflected that the eight years of the Leyens administration pushed for many changes, such as countywide animal control and more and more shared services.

“They were very progressive, and they wanted us to do a great number of things that we just couldn’t do,” George said. “We can’t match $100 bills with the city; we don’t have the kind of revenue they have, and that’s got to be understood on the front end.”

George said he anticipated inviting city officials to meet with members of the board of supervisors who were unable to attend Tuesday’s meeting to discuss in more detail some of the issues touched on Tuesday.

Mayfield said he’d like to have a meeting with county officials in the “near future” to solely look at ways the city can aid the county in cleaning bayous. After a year of indecision, the county in June accepted a $3.9 million Hurricane Katrina-related federal grant to clean and maintain three bayous in the county and city. The money requires no local match, however, it does require the county to maintain the bayous, most of which are located in the city. Winfield said he supports the city aiding the county in cleaning and maintaining bayous.

“I understand some people might be concerned about the city getting involved in this project, but to me this is a public health and public welfare concern,” said Winfield. “I definitely would be interested in participating, if not taking on the project.”

Other topics discussed briefly at the meeting included everything from the upcoming college football season to emergency management and the possibility of expanding city fire service into highly-populated portions of the county immediately outside the city limits.

The county’s emergency management agency is recognized by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency as the local contact in an emergency. Under Leyens direction, the city created it’s own agency following Hurricane Katrina. Currently, fire service outside of the city is handled by the county’s network of six volunteer fire departments.

“There may be some opportunities for us to work out some mutual aid agreements and save some expenses on both ends by eliminating some duplication of services,” said Winfield. “I think we have a unique opportunity here to share in more opportunities than we have in the past.”

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com