The Board of Mayor and Aldermen on Friday tapped John Ferguson, a former four-term county supervisor and mayoral aspirant, to fill a seat on the Vicksburg Housing Authority’s board opened by the expiration of Ella Lee’s term.

Ferguson’s appointment was supported by Mayor Paul Winfield and North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield. South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman recused himself from the vote, citing his wife’s employment by the VHA.

Ferguson, who supported Winfield’s mayoral campaign last year, said he agreed to serve on the VHA management commission “because the mayor asked me to. It was nothing I asked for.”

His appointment is the latest in a succession of sometimes turbulent VHA personnel changes. 

In February 2009, under former Mayor Laurence Leyens, the city board replaced every member of the five-person VHA panel, except Lee. Three months later, the board fired Jim Stirgus Sr., who had served as the authority’s executive director for 21 years. In July, Dannie Walker, a Corinth native with 18 years of housing authority experience, was hired as new executive director.

The turnover unfolded while Charles Jones Jr., the VHA’s former maintenance director, was facing drug charges stemming from his arrest in December 2008. In November 2009, Jones was given a 10-year prison sentence for possessing more than 30 grams of cocaine with intent to distribute. A second drug charge and separate embezzlement indictment were dropped as part of a pretrial deal. 

The VHA owns and rents 430 apartments and homes in six locations to people meeting income criteria. The city does not fund its operation or maintenance of those residences. The role of the city board is to name VHA commission members.

Ferguson’s business background and experience in government have prepared him, Winfield said.

“Mr. Ferguson has a business degree, and he’s dedicated himself to the people of this community,” Winfield said. “He has over a decade of public service. He cares deeply about the people” in the VHA.

But Jay Kilroy, one of the four board members appointed under the Leyens administration, said he was sorry to see Lee go.

“The mayor did not consult the board about” Ferguson’s appointment, Kilroy said. “I was really hoping that they would keep a woman on the board — especially when you consider the number of residents we serve who are women. I think her perspective was a needed one.”

Lee could not be reached for comment.

The VHA panel now includes Ferguson, Kilroy, Christopher Barnett, Abraham Green and Charles Wright. VHA commissioners are appointed to staggered five-year terms. Green’s term is set to expire in 2013, Kilroy’s in 2012, Wright’s in 2011 and Barnett’s this year.

Ferguson became the first black member of the Warren County Board of Supervisors after winning election to the District 2 seat in 1979. In 1995, bidding for his fifth term, he was defeated in the Democratic primaries by Mayfield. 

Ferguson has served on the board of the Vicksburg Municipal Airport and the Warren County Port Commission. He also worked as a contract employee for the federal government, retiring in January 2009. He ran for mayor in 2005, but was defeated by District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon for the Democratic nomination to oppose Leyens. He announced a campaign in 1999 against Selmon for the District 3 seat, but withdrew three months before that primary.

Also Friday, the board authorized the mayor to make changes to a sub-grant agreement with the Vicksburg Transportation Museum and execute a second lease agreement with the museum planned at the old Levee Street Depot.

The city is moving forward with a deal to merge the Vicksburg Main Street Program and Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau office spaces in the second floor of the 102-year-old, vacant depot.

“The train depot museum has been an ongoing, evolving project, and this latest second agreement and lease agreement reflect the new additions to our project,” City Attorney Lee Davis Thames Jr. said. “For instance, we’re now putting the VCVB and Main Street on the same floor. That wasn’t in the original.”

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Contact Ben Bryant at bbryant@vicksburgpost.com