Flaggs looking for accountability in event sponsorships

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. grew frustrated during the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting this morning regarding whether the city should fund events from the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations.

On the Feb. 3 meeting agenda was a request for funding Vicksburg Second Saturdays in the amount of $5,000 payable to the Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce Community Fund, Inc., to cover the first six months of the event in 2020.

Second Saturday is a Chamber of Commerce event designed to bring residents and tourists to downtown Vicksburg by hosting local artists demonstrating their crafts, entertainers and musicians, sidewalk sales and restaurant specials.

This event began on June 8, 2019, and has taken place once every month since then. The next event is scheduled for Feb. 8. 

Following the first event, the Second Saturday committee sent out surveys to over 60 people with the majority of responses praising the event despite the summer heat. Merchants in the downtown area were also sent the survey. There was a minimal response from the merchant survey, but the ones who took the time to fill it out rated the event as excellent or very good.

Flaggs has a different opinion. Attendance has fluctuated for the outdoor event due to weather and competing events throughout the community. January’s Second Saturday drew an estimated 100 people.

“I will not continue to fund programs that are not working,” he said.

“This is the last dime that the city will spend on Second Saturday,” Flaggs said as the board approved the expense. “The Chamber of Commerce and others went out and created Second Saturday, and we are not here to budget everybody’s projects in the city when they start-up, and when they don’t work, you want to come to the city for us to bail you out.”

The Mayor believes Second Saturdays have not lived up to the event’s high expectations.

“I will promote Second Saturday,” Flaggs said. “I will promote anything this city wants to have, but you can’t create these programs and events and think the city is going to budget it.”

Flaggs called on Vicksburg Accounting Director Doug Whittington to confirm the annual advertising budget, and Whittington said the budget had been decreased from previous years to $225,000.

“I want to help, and we are going to continue to help,” Flaggs said.

Flaggs touched on other events held in Downtown Vicksburg such as Riverfest, a two-day family-friendly festival of music and arts generally held in May, which is free to the public.

“There have been questions about Riverfest,” Flaggs said. “Well, I don’t know about the Riverfest. I tried to meet with the Riverfest people. They told me, emphatically, that I had no authority, and that was a function by the Chamber, so if there is no Riverfest, it ain’t Flaggs’ fault.”

Flaggs stated in the meeting he believes in performance benchmarks. 

“You can’t pay $100,000 and put people on the streets and say, ‘We had a successful program’,” he said. “We had baseball games and everything, and it didn’t work.”

Mayor Flaggs tried to offer assistance to the Riverfest committee to make the event pay its way instead of being a free event, but the committee turned down his assistance.

“They told me, ‘I don’t know what he’s talking about. That’s one thing he can’t do. He can’t touch Riverfest.’ Fine, I ain’t touching Riverfest,” Flaggs said. “Thank you, and may God Bless you.”

No official dates have been given for Riverfest 2020 at this time.