Downtown Partners began to add some structure Tuesday evening, as members elected officers and began to discuss their short-term ideas during the group’s second meeting.

“Y’all are in a much better place than you think you are,” said moderator Ben Allen, a Vicksburg native and president of Downtown Jackson Partners. “You’ve got the hard part done already — you have people who care here.”

The organization was formed last month by Mayor Paul Winfield, who is charging the appointed members with exploring ways to balance residential, retail and entertainment redevelopment along Washington Street and the greater downtown area. The group’s 15 members are a mix of shop owners, residents and restaurateurs, among others.

Blake Teller, an attorney, was selected as chairman. Larry Gawronski, director of VenuWorks, was elected vice-chairman; Karen Davis, the owner of a downtown beauty salon, secretary; and David Day, restaurant owner and radio host, spokesman. The group is meeting monthly, and their 90-minute meeting Tuesday advanced preliminary discussions that emerged during a four-hour meeting in March.

Winfield told the members he assembled them to “put the future of downtown in the hands of the citizens there.”

“We have a comfortable situation, but if we don’t start looking at what’s ahead of us, I think we’ll be selling ourselves short,” the mayor said.

The members on Tuesday learned more from Allen, former member of the Jackson City Council, about the business improvement district in Jackson, and charged one another with coming up with some goals for the group and downtown.

“Next time each of us should come with short-term and long-term goals, and based on those we can begin forming subcommittees,” Teller said.

“I hope we don’t take the ready, fire, aim approach,” said Gawronski. “We need to know who we are, and then we should begin writing a game plan for where we want to go.”

Fourteen of the group’s 15 members were in attendance Tuesday, as were a number of city officials who have been identified as Downtown Partners observers.

After years with little support, the downtown area was targeted for a makeover in 2001 that resulted in more businesses and some conflict between residential and commercial users. For example, a dispute over whether to allow variances for an upstairs lounge greeted Winfield when he took office in July. The prospective business won permission for alterations disallowed by the Architectural Review Board, but no construction has taken place.

Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com