Mayor Robert Walker talks with Marcus Bottom residents at KFC on Halls Ferry Road Saturday during a community meeting. (The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[04/09/01] Youth recreation topped the list of concerns for residents in the Marcus Bottom area at a public meeting Saturday with doctoral students from Jackson State University.

About 21 residents from the neighborhood along Halls Ferry Road met with the students as part of a class project with the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Jackson State University. The students are conducting surveys of residents in a five-block area between Bowmar Avenue and Cherry Street and plan to come back April 30 with recommendations to improve the neighborhood.

Greg Garrett, a city employee who has lived in Marcus Bottom for 35 years, told students that the area needed more for recreational activities and places for the youth to go.

“There is enough money for (the city) to build something for these young people,” Garrett said.

Betty Tolliver, a city social worker and Marcus Bottom resident, agreed that some place for teens to go was important to the area. She said that other city parks were too far away and that something needed to be centrally located in the neighborhood.

“We don’t want our children walking all across town,” Tolliver said.

Deborah Grison, a second semester doctoral student at Jackson State University , said that the purpose of the group’s project was for the students to be able to apply what they learned to the Marcus Bottom area and hopefully bring about some improvements in the neighborhood.

“Things take time,” Grison said. “They’re not going to happen overnight.”

Probably the most input for the students came from Geneva Dorsey, a retired teacher and resident in the Marcus Bottom area for 60 years. Like others, she said youth activities were important, but also listed other priorities for the community.

“People in this area are poor,” Dorsey said. “I’m poor and there are a lot of people poorer than me here.”

Dorsey said that the intersection at Halls Ferry and Lane streets had become dangerous and that a traffic light was needed because approximately 14,000 cars travel the road every day. Also topping her list was encouraging people to clean up litter, finding funding to help renovate dilapidated homes in the neighborhood and crime prevention.

While most of the residents at the meeting agreed that improvements had been made since the opening of the Douglas Park Precinct on Halls Ferry Road last year, more was needed for the area to truly be safe.

“Seventy-five percent of the bad things that happen here are by people not from Marcus Bottom,” Garrett said.

Tolliver said that a growing problem in the area is vagrants moving into empty homes at night.

“People who don’t live here don’t care what happens in Marcus Bottom,” she said.

Alvin Sanders, a property owner in Marcus Bottom, told students that another concern for the people living in the area was problems with drainage. Stouts Bayou runs through the area and Halls Ferry Road has often flooded during hard rains.

“All of the water from up on Mission and other parts of the city settles here,” Sanders said.

Another concern expressed by citizens was establishing more shopping in the area and obtaining funding for local residents to start their own businesses.

Mayor Robert Walker fielded some of the questions and directed residents to the proper city department for many of their concerns. He said that there are many programs already in place to help citizens obtain low-interest loans to start businesses or help with home-buying, but that residents needed more information about how to go about applying.

Walker encouraged the residents to watch the city’s television station on cable channel 23, which broadcasts telephone numbers to different city departments 24-hours a day.

“There is nobody in the city more interested in what happens here than me,” Walker said. “Because I live here, too.”

Joan Wesley with Jackson State University suggested that one thing residents in the area might look at was forming a neighborhood association. She also said that another purpose of the project was to help identify resources and points-of-contact with city officials.

“It is important that any community changes involve input from the community,” Wesley said.

Walker said that the city is looking to formalize an agreement with the university to bring similar resources to the city. The current project is being done as part of the students’ education at no cost to Vicksburg.

“This area will not be left out,” he said. “This is not political; this is something that needs to be done.”