Two weeks after Mayor Paul Winfield said a committee of downtown business owners, residents and investors would be formed to look at ways to balance entertainment, residential and retail interests along Washington Street, the committee has yet to materialize.

“(Winfield) sent me a list of names on Wednesday, but we have not talked about it as a board yet,” South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman said Friday.

The mayor is scheduled to be in Washington, D.C., Monday through Wednesday with other local officials for an annual lobbying trip, meaning the committee likely will not be discussed at least until the end of the week. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen is set to meet at 10 a.m. Monday.

Winfield did not return a call for comment Friday.

The mayor first pledged in late October to put the committee together, following a round of heated public hearings concerning the expansion of a Washington Street eatery that fractured residents and business owners downtown. At that time, the mayor said he hoped to have the committee in place by the end of 2009. More recently, Winfield said on Jan. 15 the committee would be announced in the coming week.

North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield said Thursday he also had received a working list of Winfield’s choices for the committee, which is expected to have 13 to 15 members. Mayfield said he had three people in mind for the committee, but all gave him the same answer when he asked them to serve.

“They won’t accept it. They said they don’t want any part of this board because it’s so embroiled in political games,” Mayfield said.

Winfield has declined to announce any candidates for the committee until it is in place. Beauman said he has suggested one name to add to Winfield’s list. It is unclear if the committee members will have to be officially approved by the mayor and aldermen.

“If it’s going to be an official board of the City of Vicksburg, then it would have to be,” Beauman said. “But if it’s just going to be a mayor’s advisory board, then it wouldn’t need any approval by the board. And as I said, we haven’t discussed those details.”

The committee, as Winfield has said he envisions, will outline basic goals for downtown development and review existing zoning ordinances along Washington Street. The mayor has said the members eventually will travel to similar cities in the South to see how downtown interests are balanced.

Beauman expressed some concern the committee might end up replicating what the Vicksburg Main Street Program and the Vicksburg Board of Zoning Appeals are already charged with doing.

“I asked (Winfield) if he’s trying to replace Main Street and the zoning board, and he said ‘no,’” Beauman said. “It still sounds like a duplication to me.”

Mayfield said his lone concern is the committee will focus only on downtown, and not the community as a whole.

“I’m not interested in putting together a committee that is solely interested in downtown. Let it be about making downtown the nucleus, I can live with that, but I do not want to see this committee filled with people who will only see the light at the end of the tunnel for themselves and not the greater community,” he said.  

Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com