Welcome in to another episode of The Extra Mile Podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. So excited today. Taking the show on the road to the City of Vicksburg to talk to Mayor George Flaggs. One of the things we really wanted to talk to him about was how transportation infrastructure impacts economic growth and development in the state. Talked a lot about that and we also have a surprise. Our Waverly McCarthy is now Waverly Prince. She got married not too long ago. Yes I did. Congratulations, Waverly. Two whole weeks of marriage. It’s been great.

Um yeah but we are in the beautiful city of Vicksburg talking to Mayor George Flaggs and he was very insightful. He talked a lot about connecting the dots and how infrastructure impacts cities and how a vibrant city needs infrastructure and infrastructure needs a vibrant city and I think it was a really great conversation and we learned a lot. So I’m excited to let y ’all hear. Let’s get started.
We are in the beautiful historic City of Vicksburg and we of course have taken the show on the road for the very first time and so thankful that Mayor George Flaggs is our first non MDOT guest. Mayor Flaggs, Can you kind of take us through your career? I know you’ve been involved in Mississippi politics for a long time.

Well first of all let me thank you for coming to Vicksburg and welcome you to the City of Vicksburg. You’re right. It’s one of the most beautiful cities you’ll ever want to see. I have a great passion about this city so if I sound biased about Vicksburg I am because I’ve been here all my life. But let me just say this is that I started out working for a chemical plant. Worked there for about 15 years. We had an educational program where I went back to school and got a degree in industrial technology and then going back I had help in 1987 with election of Congressman Mike Espy. Then it came up the election of the House of Representatives I was drafted. Believe it or not my only experience was knowing the community. I was a model. Hard to believe I was a fashion model for a charitable organization that we donated money back to the charity. But fast forwarding it so I served about 25 years in the legislature and it was one of the most humble and rewarding experiences I ever had. I don’t think I would have been able to transition to this mayoral position had I not. I chaired a lot of committees in the House. I was one of the longer serving member of the legislative budget committee and on appropriation committee so in itself it gave me the opportunity to see how the money flow and as the money flow I was able to see how it was impacting the state through the various agencies. It was just rewarding for me so coming here I just had to learn all over again. I was drafted in this and I had retired. I thought that I had proven myself and wanted to do something different. I was drafted for this. I was in a race with about six people in a primary and I won with 50 percent of the vote plus one. The rest is history and I’ve been winning ever since and I hope I can continue to win. I’m not through yet. Well you’ve done a lot of good things for the City of Vicksburg so I’m sure that they’ll be happy to have you.

What we try to do is I believe in this. I believe you should leave a situation or relationship in a better position than you found it. It brings back a great reflection when I first got elected in 2013. I was riding up the street on Washington Street there were five cars, boarded vehicles and I just couldn’t understand what had happened. A city that had a rail system going through it, I-20 and the beautiful Mississippi River for all kinds of transportation why we wouldn’t sink. We had unemployment, we had what we called an ERDC research laboratory that had more PHD’s per capita than anybody else. I just couldn’t understand what had happened so what I did was just roll up my sleeves and said, you know what? I want to make this better. I want to keep it simple and make it look easy and I started organizing around the resources of Vicksburg, around the expertise of Vicksburg. We didn’t do it different downtown. We just told them we were open for business.
Sure. And Mayor Flaggs, One of the main kind of themes and points of this podcast is to kind of let our listeners know the impacts of transportation infrastructure on economic growth and development. You are a local, you are a city leader. Can you kind of tell us your experience with that and your thoughts on that?

The way I look at it from my perspective, education meaning an educational workforce slash great infrastructure win win. That’s how I look at it. You cannot have a vibrant city without having the infrastructure that is needed. Every city, every state ought to take its resource and try to collaborate around the state within its community and connect the dots of a system. I see and I think the state of Mississippi is doing a great job. I think the commissioners doing a great job. By the way my good friend is Executive Director over there Brad is going to do a good job if given the opportunity. Let me just say all we have to do is connect the dots. We have enough dots in this city to compete against California, New York and any other city that has a mass transit system or have any type of transportation. It’s just that we’ve never connected the dots and put them altogether so that it will flow from the interstate to the county roads to the state roads and everything.

Yeah, absolutely and so you talked a little bit about how connecting those dots, working with the state and within the city. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of those relationships between local and state?

It’s absolutely imperative that you have good relationship. I thrive on relationship. I’m always told my relationship matter. It’s not just community relationship. It’s from the White House down to local government. It’s important that if you want to build upon this antiquated infrastructure throughout this country then you’ll need federal government to do its part. There can be some improvement there. The state has to do its part and then at the county level they have to do their part and the local government which is municipal government is making certain that the streets and the access to the streets, the bridges going to the streets, the exits and ramps going to the streets meet all the needs of the city the state and the nation so they all flow together.

I-20 we just got for the first time and it ought to be open in another month or two a bridge that will connect one of the most vital parts of our city the outlet mall which is dying in desperate need access from I-20 eastbound. Now we got it and that’s going to be a tremendous economic impact because we’ll be able to bring that outlet mall back. Because around that outlet mall you’re going to see eateries and broker space.That’s what it means for Vicksburg.

Then some of our exits and our ramps can be improved and when they are improved and connect to I-20 and then I-20 I think that’s a long term plan of trying to six lane some of I-20 from Jackson to Vicksburg. If that becomes a reality then what you’re going to see because I see it every day, I see more 18 wheelers on I-20 than I’ve ever seen before. And what that means is that people are transporting their goods by means of 18 wheelers, tractors and trailers. So we have to be ready for that. When you drive by Love’s you can see all the 18 wheelers parked over there. That’s a great economic revenue source for not only the state but for the county and the city. So that’s connecting the dots.

Our dots ought to go from government positions to the actual infrastructure and when we do that I think we’re doing that. I think we’re doing a much better job at it. When I first went to the legislature the fight was about north Mississippi and south Mississippi and the central got left out. Now it’s about who can best prove the need and grow the city. I see folks talk about Madison. Why are they doing so much infrastructure and improvement around Madison? But look at how Madison’s growing. The infrastructure follows the growth. The growth follows the infrastructure. There’s a correlation between the growth and the infrastructure. So I don’t ratchet down on Madison. What I do is just try to take a model from Madison and improve Vicksburg. But yes, I don’t see in 2021, 20, the next 30, 40, 50 years infrastructure being second to anything other than a great educational workforce.

You mentioned a little bit but a good transportation network that means jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, right? Absolutely. The other part about infrastructure is that the component that nobody ever sees is the building of the infrastructure, the number of jobs that are created by the construction workers and the construction need are the in and in. Everything that goes into infrastructure nobody sees that. They just see a road that has been built, looks good and it’s a mean of transportation. But I’m telling you on the side of a small business, I’m willing to bet you that infrastructure needs or infrastructure improvements or infrastructure period provide more in a local state to an economy than anything else. Thank you, Mayor Flaggs. We’re gonna take a short break but we will be right back.

Welcome back. We’re here with Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs. We’ve been talking mostly about roads. Vicksburg is a major river city so we’ve got ports, we’ve got waterways, we’ve got you talked about it earlier the rails. Can you talk a little bit about how improvements in those areas also impact Vicksburg?

Well access and when you have access then that’s an improvement in itself. We’ve been able to work with the department of transportation, work with the county, work with the city. We just found out that we have a crown jewel in our city and that is some undeveloped land that’s adjacent to the Mississippi River which will create one of the fastest and biggest port in this state if we just develop. It has a rail. It has the water and it connects to I-20. Three means of transportation are better. I don’t believe nobody else in Mississippi would have that.

We are trying to promote it. We’re trying to say to the rest of the world if you want to transport your goods from New Orleans, to Canada or from Canada back to wherever we’re gonna have a central located port that’s gonna be accessible to you and it’s going to be affordable or if you want to bring your goods to a central location in Vicksburg cause we’re the gateway from California, from Atlanta, New York, I-20. We’re saying bring your goods to Vicksburg and then you can unload here in Vicksburg get an 18 wheeler pack and go wherever you want to. I think that in itself is going to be the future not just this city but this state. And that goes back to your point about connecting those dots. Oh. It’s connecting the dots. We have to look down on Mississippi from above and see what is not connected. The Highway 47 that should have been four lane we have to look at it and not only when we connect the dots.

You talk about the economic impact of a good infrastructure but you haven’t talked about the safety of a good infrastructure. When you’ve got safe ramps, you’ve got safe exits, you’ve got safe roads and you’ve got safe bridges I can’t forget when we had more bridges in Mississippi that was obsolete or was failing and all I could see is children school bus can’t get cross those bridge or wasn’t allowed because they was closed down. Look upon every group to a means to fast mobile transportation. The SCC. I’m told that Congress is looking at a way to taking I-20 going all the way from Atlanta to Shreveport, Monroe or Dallas I think and look at how to be able to create a rail infrastructure with a high speed train. I mean that’s gonna be great. Another thing that comes to mind why infrastructure and connecting dots is important we’re in the midst I guess in the next years to come hurricanes, evacuations it’s important to be able to get out and get out fast. Those are safety measurements that people don’t look at. But if you want to fuel a ball in that let them do a mandatory evacuation out of New Orleans or the coast, 55 or 49. And we’ve gotta have more means to do that. We’ve gotta have more means in the Delta or going from east to west so that we can be able to connect the dots again make sure that we make traffic accessible to not only the river barges but to rail and vehicles and everything. That’s the way I see it.

Mayor Flaggs, Thank you so much for talking about the safety aspect of transportation infrastructure. That’s certainly one of the most important things that we strive for at MDOT. You also talked about connecting the dots and it’s very important to keep everyone connected. Can you talk about the importance of public transit kind of in Vicksburg and just kind of overall?

Well the public transit in Vicksburg we have what we call a small means of enroute bus that is primarily now is being used to transport handicapped people to different healthcare facility. But we could use one like Jackson where you have JATRAN and all those things. They are very important because look right now. Look at the cost of gasoline because the cost of gasoline, I don’t see it going down as fast as it did last time and because of that we’ve got to be able to be more creative innovative in our providing transportation to people to and from work. In the larger cities they bike to work or scooter to work.

They do a lot of things in the DC area, Atlanta areas but in our area we have to create more ways to be more mobile for people to go back and forth to work or back and forth to healthcare needs and those type things because of the fact like I said gas is going up and a lot of things around vehicles and then it’s a safety measure when you don’t have as many cars on the highways or roads or the street at the same time because you can mobilize more people. You take a bus with 42 people it will take six cars to get 42 people more to get that many people. That’s why it’s important. I think in credit to MDOT I think they’re doing everything that they can to make certain that these improvements we’re talking about are on the table. The issue is always going to be funded.

How do you fund it? The ideas are brilliant but how do you fund them? I think the critical need for them is to be able to get more federal funded and that’s why I support the national infrastructure bill that is being talked about. Some people think its dead. I don’t. I think they’re going to come up with an infrastructure bill because congress, republicans and democrats understand the need of improving infrastructure and what it’s gonna cost if we don’t do something and it’s a way to create jobs. And I get back to the job not only just to say the number jobs that you created. Those jobs paying pretty good now. Then the service like engineering and all the construction people that goes into them so it in itself is the economic engine infrastructure by itself.

Well, Mayor Flaggs, very insightful conversation and we were really excited to get out on the road and hear another perspective. Thank you so much for having us in your beautiful city and we really appreciate it. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. Well thanks for coming and y’all continue to do what you’re doing because when you have programs like this you educate the public, you raise the awareness and then at the same time you allow them to have input into their infrastructure or whatever means of government. So keep doing what y’all are doing and tell my good friend Brad White keep doing a good job. Willie Simmons and those commissioners keep doing what they’re doing. Thank you. Yes sir.

That was a great converstation with Mayor Flaggs. Just want to thank the City of Vicksburg for welcoming us to their beautiful city. And especially Tiffany Pendleton, the mayor’s chief of staff, for helping set this up and it’s been a great conversation. And before we get out of here, we want to thank our wonderful producer Katey Hornsby and our editor Drew Hall. Everybody remember drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.