If the Warren County Board of Supervisors wants to locate the proposed county jail outside the city limits, the city of Vicksburg wants a say over where it goes, and at least two members of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen don’t want it at the Ceres Industrial Park.

That opposition to Ceres was reinforced in a letter by Mayor George Flaggs Jr. sent Tuesday to the supervisors, the Warren County Port Commission and the Vicksburg-Warren Chamber of Commerce.

State law requires the county jail be located inside the city limits of the county seat unless approved by the city’s governing body.

Flaggs said in a letter Tuesday that won’t happen.

The letter was signed by Flaggs and South Ward Alderman Alex Monsour. North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield refused to sign it.

“I had no intention of putting my signature on that, because in all honesty the entire Board of Supervisors and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen need to find a quiet place and sit down as two elected boards and see if we can’t find a way to work this thing out,” Mayfield said.

The Board of Supervisors can go 1 mile outside the city limits, but cannot go further without the approval of the city for special legislation allowing the county to do so. Ceres is more than 1 mile outside the city limits.

The mayor wants the city to be an equal partner if the jail’s going outside the city, asking for an interlocal agreement with the county on the jail if it goes outside the city.

“We won’t support any local and private bill to go outside the city that does not allow us to have any involvement in it; any say so in it,” Flaggs said. “The law is clear. The law says that they cannot go more than 1 mile without having a joint resolution. We’re going to stand by that. There is a reason that law is on the books, and that’s to protect the taxpayers of the city.

“We ought to be at the table, not only on the site selection, but in the design of it, too, if our taxpayers are paying into it.”

Flaggs said he is not trying to usurp the county’s authority. “What I’m trying to do is make sure the taxpayers of the city of Vicksburg, in as much as they pay twice, are protected and their interests are protected.”

Board of Supervisors President Richard George said the city already has the right to sit at the table if the county goes past 1 mile outside the city limits.

“All we’re doing is going in circles listening to a subject where I still don’t see where they ever voted on theirs,” he said. “We’ve already voted on ours. We’ve done our best to find a location that’s the least intrusive. There’s some 800-odd acres in the industrial park and we’ve got five business locations there — one of those is vacant. I don’t see where there’s an intrusion.”

Flaggs attended a discussion about the jail at a board work session Monday and repeated the city’s opposition to putting the jail at Ceres. Flaggs initially gave the city opposition to Ceres at a November meeting on the jail in his office.

George said the city’s jail search committee has made some recommendations, “And we only got a couple and they were not new revelations. As far as we’re concerned, we haven’t received, which we asked for, alternatives (sites) that were viable.”

Mayfield said Ceres “is probably going to be one of the better sites, if not the best site.

“When you look at that site out there at Ceres, you have all your utilities at your fingertips, you have land out there that’s already owned by the county and it’s going to take very little (site) prepping to get the land ready to build on.”

One of the objections, he said, is the site’s distance from downtown Vicksburg.

He said a decision on the jail needs to be made soon, adding a new jail has been a topic of discussion for at least 25 years. “Every day that passes is costing the citizens of Warren County and the citizens of Vicksburg money,” he said, adding the cost of building a new jail could run $20 million to $30 million, compared when discussions about the jail began.

Both boards, he believes, “Somewhere along the line some logic and common sense tells you that you’re limited from Day One on where you can put a jail.”

Mayfield said he has talked with the supervisors and offered his assistance in resolving the issue.