For those of you who missed it, Monday night marked the first time all the candidates in Vicksburg’s upcoming municipal election were in the same place at the same time to talk about the issues affecting all of us before we cast ballots in June.

The Vicksburg Post partnered with WVBG to bring the live event to voters via 105.5 FM and 107.7 FM, as well as on WVBG’s free app. I will also share a link to the recorded version at the end of this column. 

Monday’s forum, or debate, or whatever word you’d like to use to describe it, was definitely informative, even for someone like me who has been covering the race since qualifying. I am obviously very familiar with our incumbents, Mayor George Flaggs Jr. and Ward 2 Alderman Alex Monsour, but Monday night was the first time I had met both Ward 2 challenger Vickie Bailey and mayoral challenger Willis Thompson, and only maybe the third chance I’d had to speak with mayoral challenger Kasman Massey.

Having spoken to them all now, both during the interview and off-air, I legitimately get the sense each one is in their respective race for the right reasons, and each person seems to bring their own unique strengths and outlooks to their campaigns.I thought each of them did fine jobs stressing how their backgrounds have shaped them into people who could conceivably be leaders for our city. Monsour and Flaggs obviously have experience – each both on the local and state levels of government; Thompson and Bailey have each worked for the City of Vicksburg before; and Massey has a background as a small-business owner. 

Monday’s forum gave me and WVBG General Manager Mark Jones the opportunity to ask the candidates some questions; however, time constraints and the inevitable back-and-forth of opposing candidates responding to one another meant we certainly didn’t get to everything on our list. We also weren’t able to take advantage of a live stream that offered listeners a chance to chime in in real time and ask questions of their own. Because of this, I’ve already personally received a number of requests for a second round of “debates,” and we are kicking around some ideas here at The Post of how we could make that work.

Any other gathering of the candidates would obviously depend on their availability and we have a short window of time to get them all together again before the election on June 3. But, if this is something the community is clamoring for, we’ll do our best to make it happen. There’s a poll now at vicksburgpost.com meant to gauge community interest in such a thing, so jump online and let us know what you think.

In the meantime, you can check out what each candidate had to say during Monday’s forum right here: http://vicksburgradio.com/2025-mayoral-and-2nd-ward-alderman-candidate-forum/ The link leads to http://vicksburgradio.com, where you can easily navigate to the recording.

We’re thankful to WVBG for bringing The Post aboard to help host the event, and to the candidates for taking the time to sit down with us and talk to all of you about why they deserve your vote. Give it a listen and let us know if you would like to hear round two.

Blake Bell is the general manager and executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at blake.bell@vicksburgpost.com.