MDOT presents The Extra Mile podcast.

(Paul) Welcome in to another edition of The Extra Mile podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I’m MDOT Digital Manager Paul Katool. As always, I’m joined by my co-host Will Craft. He handles Government and Constituent Affairs for the agency. Will, thanks for holding things down last week.

(Will) Oh yeah.

(Paul) But the gang is back together, and we are in the Hub City. We are in the City of Hattiesburg in City Hall. And we’re happy today to talk to Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker.

A little bit of information about Mayor Barker. He’s been the Mayor of Hattiesburg since 2017. At 25 years old Mayor Barker was also elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives representing District 102. And he served for 10 years. Quite the long time. Mayor Barker, we really appreciate you hosting us today and letting us have a conversation with you.

(Mayor Barker) Hey. Glad to be here. My biggest claim to fame though is I’m Will Craft’s fraternity brother.

(Will) Hey. There we go. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. It’s a great Chapter Advisor for us there kept us out of jail and in the right decision-making frame as best as he possibly could anyway for about 18-year-olds.

Mayor, thank you again so much for being here with us and letting us come to hang out. Tell us a little bit about yourself for those who may not know you. Kind of a little bit about your background, where you grew up, how you got to Hattiesburg.

(Mayor Barker) Well, I grew up in Meridian and so I grew up going to the Neshoba County Fair and listening to Commissioner Dick Hall give his vision for all of the roads around Meridian and Philadelphia. And went to Southern Miss and loved it so much for undergrad and grad school that I ended up staying. And post Katrina I worked for the university doing small business development with some of the businesses that had been affected by the storm.

And then 2007 came around and I was going to run the campaign for my friend who was going to run for state representative, but he ended up not running. I’m kind of like the last kid in the family that’s an accident which is my political career all in a nutshell. So, random was lucky or unlucky enough to win depending on how you look at it. And had a been very fortunate to one live in this city but also to do some neat things on behalf of it.

(Will) And then you know having the tenured resume there. Got 10 years, 10 full years which I’m sure was just enough to be done with the dealing with the legislature and the Capital area. What drove you to come back and run for mayor?

(Mayor Barker) Well, the thing is I always thought I would be a House man for my career. I was comfortable with the idea of staying and I had a lot of great mentors going back to when it was democratic controller Warner McBride and Steve Holland. And then having republicans like Greg Snowden and Philip Gunn and Herb Frierson that really kind of took me under their wing as well. And had a great tenure on the appropriations committee and loved those guys. And it’s kind of jealous seeing all the people that were in my class are now becoming like big chairman. You’re actually getting somewhere now.

But I think you know in 2007 you know we were pregnant with our first child and the city was in a place where it was just kind of stuck. Hattiesburg always has a lot going on because of two universities and two major medical facilities and Camp Shelby. And it’s a really strong small business economy.

But I think from a leadership standpoint we were just sort of at a stalemate. There was a lot of friction between the council and administration. And I just thought that we had too much potential to simply just go and ran for mayor in 2017 against you know four-term Mayor Dupree who had done a lot for the city but was lucky enough to win and was re-elected last year.

(Will) Awesome. Awesome.

(Paul) Mayor Barker, this is an MDOT podcast, and I know you know we deal with interstates, highways, a lot of state-maintained stuff but we do work with cities. And can you talk about kind of how you work with MDOT to get things done locally?

(Mayor Barker) Well, it’s everything from going after really big grants and having to aggravate Kelly Castleberry, to meeting with my commissioner Commissioner King who I have a long-standing relationship with when he was transportation chairman of the senate and even before that when I was roommates with his son in college.

(Will) That’s right.

(Paul) Cool.

(Mayor Barker) Which is a funny story how we met. Totally diverging here.

(Will) That’s okay.

(Mayor Barker) But the day after Katrina I was living with Chad King and a tree had come through our house. And Chad had done the right thing and gone home to stay with his parents. I did not. I stayed in there. And so, I was there when the tree fell. And I remember Commissioner King pulled up and looked at house. And never had met you before but embraced me like I was his own son and he’s been taking care of me ever since.

So, I think it’s everything from going after big grants you know and ongoing government relations with Commissioner King. And letting him know what’s going on with our MPO which we have a metropolitan planning organization. Working with Lamar County and Forest County and Petal. But also, down to we’re trying to keep I-59 and the City of Hattiesburg looking better.

And so, you know entering into MOU so that we can use the tractor that MDOT has but our guys can man it just to keep that area picked up and cut. Which is so important you know first impressions particularly when we’re having you know regionals like we’re having conference championships and football games. Hattiesburg has a lot going on on a regular basis and so trying to keep the area picked up.

Even right now we’re the middle of a visioning charette about how we can make the I-59, 98 interchange look better. How we can make it look memorable? So, that when you come through Hattiesburg, you may not stop but you’re going to remember that we look nice. And maybe you’ll want to come back later. And I think MDOT’s part of that process. And you know their big thing is just safety. And we have to sort of have that dialogue with you. You know, what can the city do? What can MDOT do?

And it’s been a really good relationship and I would certainly encourage any mayor, any supervisor that the more you engage MDOT whether it’s your district engineer whether it’s your transportation commissioner whether it’s the leadership in Jackson. And you know Brad White and I have known each other since I was in the legislature, and he’s been Chief of Staff for a lot of people. And they really do have a collaborative spirit at MDOT, and I think that’s a quality that often goes unrecognized.

(Will) I appreciate that. Any other big projects going on? I know we kind of touched on the Hall Avenue overpass. That’s gonna be great. Any other major or even that one if you want to speak to.

(Mayor Barker) Sure. I mean so, we had some you know Hattiesburg is called the Hub City. And it’s because we were between, we were kind of the junction for all these rail lines whether Mobile, New Orleans, Natchez, Gulfport, Meridian, Jackson. And I think I’m naming them all in the hub sign. And so, that’s where we got our start with timber and having been sort of the in between with all those places, And the problem is though when you have a lot of rail lines your downtown grows out of that. And vehicles come into play over the course of a century. It sometimes creates an adversary relationship between railroads and your city’s transportation system.

So, we have 20 at grade crossings in our downtown. We have no grade separated crosses. Which you know coming from Meridian we have five or six overpasses. And so, it’s just the solution seemed simple. And the rail lines attitude tends to be, and this is not a knock on them, this is just again this is the way it developed as they were there first, they were. So, we tried to tackle you know how do we get over you know the Canadian National line and the Norfolk Southern line. And what’s the most efficient way to route that.

And we went after a CRISI grant in 201 and eventually had some success in 2020, $5.3 million grant that we and you know we matched that with about nine million of our own to build that first overpass. We chose Hall Avenue because Hall Avenue is the one road that goes over both rail lines. It’s just south of our downtown . There’s plenty of room so you can get over Canadian National and Norfolk Southern. So, we got the CRISI grant in January of 2020. It’s one of the few good things that happened that year.

And we went after a Build Grant as well and we had we had gone after bill grants before and been unsuccessful. But one thing that I would also encourage cities and counties to do is I mean you can’t just submit your application and then let it and then let it go. I mean you got to work it. You got to get up there and I mean I spent, I go to DC four or five times and seeing different senator staff and our congress. Congressman Palazzo staff which has been great to work with . And later that year we were successful with the build grant too. It was about a $13 million Build Grant. And so, between those two federal grants and a lot of matching money from the local folks which I do think local folks need to have skin in the game.

(Will) Sure.

(Mayor Barker) You know, we’re gonna have one boulevard that goes with both rail lines. And we’re solving a centuries-old transportation problem.

(Will) It’s awesome.

(Mayor Barker) With those two grants the federal DOT. Now the relationship there is that you know it’s the state DOT and federal highway that helps administer that and federal railroad as well. And so, you have to work with all those things but it’s really good when you have your state DOT in your corner and understanding what’s going on. You know we’re very; we have a great grant writing team at local impact analytics who’s out of Hattiesburg and they’ve had so much success that now other cities are trying to hire them away from us which you know. But I think the big thing is you know always, always having a great application in.

So, right now we have a raised grant to do some planning as I’m sure we’ll talk about. I mean Hattiesburg has a lot of growth. Our daytime population swells a good bit. And so, we always have issues with east-west corridors and trying to have sufficient capacity to get those things done. So, right now we’re going after a raised grant to do some planning on our western beltway which would help move traffic to the western side of Hattiesburg and even Bellevue and that area. That’s a priority.

We just submitted an INFRA Grant in collaboration with MDOT about how to redo our 59 highway 11 interchange which has been so dangerous. But you know, as we look forward to landing a big client down at our mega site you have to plan for those things. And I think it’s just incumbent upon a community to be proactive, to always be looking because if you put in the word MDOT will be in your corner at least or at least helping you.

Like that INFRA Grant. We worked a year on that.

(Will) Right.

(Mayor Barker) Planning and going through you know feasibility studies. And of course, the fun ones are the TA programs, the transfer alternatives. And we’ve had some success there. And I’m very grateful to Commissioner King and the rest of the transportation commission and Willie Simmons for supporting us in those things.

We are working on develop changing our Gordon’s Creek which is the drainage ditch through the middle of our city and trying to make it more than just a drainage ditch, trying to make an amenity and so we’re seeing some things happen there including a food truck park that we’ll be starting to work on in January.

(Will) Oh cool. I hadn’t heard about that yet. Yeah.

(Paul) That’s pretty cool. Lots of stuff going on in Hattiesburg. And you mentioned the two universities earlier. Are there any additional considerations you have to make when planning transportation where there’s two universities?

(Mayor Barker) Well sure. I think there is. I mean you’ve got Southern Miss the powerhouse and has been there right in midtown for you know a hundred and ten years now. That’s that area in front of you know of Hardy Street is MDOT controlled. And so, when we you know embarked on a landscaping plan that we were just about to wrap up through Southern Miss applying for a TA for a tap. You know, you have to work with MDOT on that. William Carey is probably the fastest growing university that we have. They’re the largest med school in the state now.
And you know, we’re trying to leverage our MPO dollars to do a connection between William Carey and downtown.

Because you know as well as doing some of these new grants to an infrastructure bill such as the safe streets for all. I’m trying to sort of gear toward that because we have some real access issues on the forty-nine area. Right now, we’re, sorry, I’m giving you a laundry list. We’re working on a lighting project to light 49 south that’s totally city funded. But we have to have MDOT’s work and collaboration on that. And again, they’ve always been a willing and ready partner for us.

(Will) Jeffrey George, the good councilman has frequently hit me up about the lighting project. If we could do anything again else to be helpful which you know again it’s kind of the city’s engineer.

(Mayor Barker) Jeffrey has the smallest ward in the city but he’s got the biggest dreams out of everyone.

(Will) Hey. That’s what you want out of your elected officials.

(Paul) Absolutely. Nothing wrong with that.

(Will) Not at all. You talked about the growth and just from a daily standpoint the explosion but overall, I mean even it’s been a decade since I graduated and moved back north and left Hattiesburg unfortunately. But you know, what do you kind of attribute some of the explosion that you’ve seen over the last several years?

(Mayor Barker) Well, I think Hattiesburg traditionally relies on the pillars. You know, education Southern Miss, William Carey, Pearl River Community College, Forest County campus, military Camp Shelby, medical Forest General and Merit Health Wesley. A lot of visionaries who came before us sometimes a hundred years before us made those things happen. And our challenge is to find those pillars that are going to take us forward and how we’re going to do that.

Manufacturing has become a big thing for us. Kohler now is the second largest manufacturer in thecity. Every engine in North America is now made in Hattiesburg. Every coal or engine and we’re very proud of that. You know Marjack who makes I think a quarter of all the Chik-Fil-A chicken.

(Will) Oh really?

(Mayor Barker) It’s right here in Hattiesburg, And so, manufacturing’s becoming quite the quite the pillar for us as well. And as we continue to grow, you know, our industrial park is pretty much mature now, we’ve filled almost every spot. We’re having to build like things on the water tower parcels now. I mean, we’re just you know, so, we’ve got a mega site south of town. We’ve got the innovation research commercialization park up near Classic Drive near 59, 49. And so, you’re really you know, you’re trying to you know plan and stretch your land as far as it can go.

Because you know, we have the workforce here. I mean we have population growth. We have an educated workforce. Companies are always pleased with what we have to offer here. The question is can we have the shovel ready real estate they need. And that’s been our challenge that we’ve been working on for the last several years.

(Paul) Good stuff. Good stuff. Just one more transportation question. I’ve always been interested in you know trails and pass and those sort of things. It seems like Hattiesburg has really kind of taken that head on. I know you have that Longleaf Trace. What kind of impact can that make on a city for like economic growth and development?

(Mayor Barker) Well, the thing is we had a lot of visionaries that came you know 30 years ago that made that Longleaf Trace happen. And I think the you know people like Lynn Cartwright and Stone Barefield and getting three counties to collaborate on anything is a challenge. But our mission as a city has been to continue growing. So, when you were there, it ended at Southern Miss. Well, now we’ve got it to downtown. We got to spur to the zoo. We’ve got you know; we’ve got a spur to the depot. Then we put a spur into Chain Park which is another you know MDOT funded project.

And so, the question is how do we make every neighborhood in our city have a link to the Longleaf trace. Because the tourism, because we’re still the longest rails to trails in the state. I think from a statewide perspective you know someone needs to champion this going you know from east to west across the state. I mean there’s no reason for the state to end the apprentice. We should go to Natchez. You know, we should go, you know, we should go to Perry County and on to the Alabama line. I mean that is the great wouldn’t that be the great accomplishment of that kind of thing in our lifetime to see that happen.

(Will) That would be cool.
(Mayor Barker) So, that’s one thing. I mean we get so much tourism from people who want to come ride the trace, stay at our hotels you know, drink at our bars, eat at our restaurants. We’re also working to develop as I mentioned this you know our Gordon Creek project into an actual viable pathway that brings people here because people like to be close to water. I think other cities in the state have been very successful with trying to develop their waterways. And that’s one thing we’re doing now is the Blueways Master Plan funded by our MPO to figure out how we activate these drainage ditches that we all thought were just liabilities for so long.

(Will) I did the Gordon’s Creek factory gave us; I didn’t even know that. You know it’d be interesting to turn that into an amenity. That’s a neat idea. Kind of before we get to the close all here question, the favorite place to eat that I know our viewers so much look forward to. Well, let’s just go right into it because I had another question and I totally forgot what it was.

You spend a lot of time driving around obviously now. You spend most of your time probably here in Hattiesburg doing the people’s work, but do you have a favorite place maybe that you only get to stop in every now and then or somewhere where you’re traveling around the state that you just got to stop in and get a bite at? Do you have a favorite?

(Mayor Barker) Yeah. So, first of all I’d recommend anybody come and see any of our eateries in Hattiesburg. They’re awesome. They’re all fantastic. But favorite out of city has to be Walker’s in Jackson. I think it’s the best non-Hattiesburg restaurant in the state and I’ve never had a bad meal there. And that’s the one thing, I missed several things about the legislature but that’s one of them is not having regular access to Walker’s.

(Will) Delicious. I had a southwest turkey club just last week.

(Mayor Barker) The eight-ounce filet

(Will) Okay.

(Mayor Barker) with the red wine and onion ring sauce. That’s yeah.
(Will) And yeah for those of you who may not be familiar you got Walker’s at lunch and Walker’s at dinner. And it’s like you know two totally different environments and they’re both incredible.

(Mayor Barker) Absolutely.

(Will) Both incredible. Oh another thing I was going to ask just quickly. I know you’ve got a lot going on, right? We just got through graduation and got July Fourth coming up. Betsy one of your great staffers out here was mentioning the Cross the River celebration. So, how does that work?

(Mayor Barker) So, one thing that we’ve been doing with the previous mayor but especially now with the current Mayor Tony Ducker is trying to strengthen that relationship between Petal and Hattiesburg. We share two rivers and again how do we activate the spaces that you know where we can foster more development on both sides of the river in those areas of our towns? We even opened a river district through Oakland private legislation so that we could invest in those areas. But one thing that we’ve been very successful at thanks to the work of our downtown association and their chamber of commerce, I’m gonna butcher this Star-Spangled celebration.

(Will) That’s right.

(Mayor Barker) It’s a dual fireworks show but there’s bands on the Petal side. There’s bands on the Hattiesburg side. We’re the wet side of the river. But I do think that Mayor Ducker’s may be converting their side to wet as well. But it’s a fantastic time where you gather the few thousand of your closet friends. I think we had nine or 10 thousand.

(Will) That’s awesome.

(Mayor Barker) pre Covid. And then at you know nine o’clock or whatever both sides fire up their fireworks and it’s a really neat time. And we always make a point to you know, I go to his side of the river, and he comes to mine. And it’s just a great time to kind of cultivate that relationship.

(Will) The mayoral bottle rocket war or you know candles

(Mayor Barker) I had a vey bad experience with that in high school and so I’m trying to avoid the bottle rocket world wars.

(Paul) Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, Mayor Barker, we really appreciate you having us in to visit your beautiful city. I’m an outsider but every time I come to Hattiesburg; I love everything that’s going on. So, we really appreciate it.

We’ll go ahead and wrap things up and thank our listeners out there for listening to The Extra Mile podcast. I want to thank our producer Katey Hornsby, our editor Drew Hall. They made the trek with us today.

And remember you can listen, watch episodes of The Extra Mile podcast by visiting GoMDOT.com/TheExtraMile. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. That’s @MississippiDOT. The last thing as always remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.