[07/23/04] Warren County has many pressing needs and two of the more important ones are health insurance for all elected officials and a county railroad commission, Charles Selmon said Thursday.

The president of the Warren County Board of Supervisors and the board representative for District 3 made the comment during an address to the Vicksburg Rotary Club.

“I believe every elected official in Warren County deserves to have (health) insurance,” Selmon said.

Officials such as supervisors, court clerks, the sheriff, and the tax assessor and tax collector are insured, but Selmon said he was talking about such “part-time” jobs as the five election commissioners, the three constables and the coroner.

“Another thing I would like to see happen is we need to develop a railroad commission,” he said.

The problem, Selmon said, is the location of the railroad tracks in and near downtown Vicksburg and the commission would be in charge of figuring out a way to move them.

Several years ago, the county briefly looked into a commission and had talked with Kansas City Southern Railway about relocating the main line tracks from the present location to one farther to the south. One of the possible routes would have moved the tracks from a point east of the Paxton Road crossing toward the south and reconnecting a bit south of the old U.S. 80 Bridge, which carries them across the Mississippi River. A spur line would still head to the north to serve rail customers such as Anderson-Tully’s mills, industries on the E.W. Haining Industrial Center and International Paper’s mill north of Redwood.

Touching on high-tech matters, Selmon said the county needs a Web site.

“One of the ways a business will look at you is through a Web site,” he said. “If you don’t have some kind of link to the outside world through technology, you’re lost.”

The board has been discussing a Web site much of the year and received proposals from a number of firms to create and maintain the site. The list of 10 has been whittled down to Landtechwebdesigns Inc.

Responding to a question about the Vicksburg Bridge Commission’s vote this week to convert the old U.S. 80 Bridge into a park and biking area, Selmon said the board has not talked about it yet, but said it probably will discuss it before its August meeting.