Former city appointee to the Vicksburg Convention & Visitors Bureau board Bobbie Bingham Morrow will attend the tourism agency’s next meeting as a county appointee – without a vote by supervisors.

Morrow and District 2 Supervisor William Banks, her sponsor, cited a state law again Tuesday that can be read to indicate the appointment is his to make independently.

Other county board members decided in the same meeting to reverse themselves and seek an attorney general’s opinion on the appointment process.

The next VCVB scheduled meeting is Sept. 28. The agency has five city appointees, five county appointees and one joint appointee who volunteer to spend about $1 million per year in tourism tax revenues on marketing and development.

Morrow attended the supervisors’ meeting and questioned the board pointedly for about an hour while briefing members on the goings-on of the VCVB.

&#8220Why have the rules changed when it comes to me?” Morrow asked, adding that the reliance on a list of candidates compiled by the Vicksburg-Warren Community Alliance’s Tourism Council constituted the private group taking over tourism promotion from a publicly appointed body.

Mayor Laurence Leyens, who had chosen Morrow for a four-year term that expired in July, said he had lost confidence in her because she showed indifference to owners and operators of local tourist attractions.

In a guest column, Morrow explained her stance is that the VCVB’s duty is to the public, not individual enterprises.

Banks first nominated Morrow on Aug. 14 to fill the unexpired term of Bobby Doyle, District 2 appointee who resigned, but the appointment failed on a 3-2 vote. Attention then turned to the local and private law that created the VCVB in 1972, a time when county government operated on the beat system and individual supervisors had greater authority over appointments. Initial terms were staggered to avoid an all-new board once the agenda was established.

The specific language says five appointees shall be from the county board, but goes on to break out the duration of initial terms by district and allots each supervisor one appointee. It goes on to say the city’s five appointees are by the three-member city board, not allocated to individual officials.

As for all other actions, state law provides a county government may only act through board votes recorded in official minutes.

Also Tuesday, Banks was the lone dissenter on a 4-1 vote to put the official county stamp on Nelda Sampey as the joint appointee to the board. Supervisors approved a letter to the city endorsing Sampey pending the city’s approval, which was unanimous. Until record-keeping differences are ironed out, the city will show it expiring Aug. 6 of that year and the county will record the ending date as July 1.

Morrow is a records management official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was not endorsed by the Tourism Council of The Alliance, a self-formed group founded in 2001. That group wants appointees with direct experience in tourism. For example, Leyens has pledged his nominee to replace Morrow will come from the restaurant industry.

When the question of whether supervisors can make appointments without board votes first arose, District 1 Supervisor David McDonald suggested obtaining an opinion letter from the state. His motion failed.

Tuesday, it passed with District 4 Supervisor Carl Flanders and District 3 Supervisor Charles Selmon dissenting.

&#8220It’s a waste of time,” Selmon said. &#8220The law is already clear.”

If an answer to the request for an opinion does not come before the VCVB’s next meeting, Morrow said later, she will seat herself at the table at the VCVB’s meeting and will sign the usual bond paperwork.

One other county appointment, that of Flanders, is still open. Bobby Bailess declined a third term.

Among her questions, Morrow pressed supervisors on the importance of selecting nominees on an Alliance screening list over that of her experience on the board.

&#8220What have I not done that you’d like to see done?” she asked.

The three supervisors who voted against her appointment twice in the last month largely demurred.

&#8220I follow the same path I always have. I do my own research and cast my vote,” District 5 Supervisor Richard George said.

McDonald said he &#8220made a commitment to the Alliance” that he would support their list of candidates because they are &#8220the professionals in marketing and tourism industry” in Vicksburg and Warren County.

The VCVB has been in rapid transition for 11 months, starting with the resignation of former chairman Curt Follmer. The board was sharply divided in December and January votes that led, against Morrow’s wishes, to the naming of Compass of Vicksburg as the agency’s contract manager as opposed to hiring an executive director.

Sampey, now board chairman, is the third chairman in a year. Former hotel manager Tim Darden served six months in that capacity before stepping down in June.