Poor maintenance of recreation facilities in the North Ward and poor police manners were taken before the Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen Monday in the session where the new administration has decided to have “open microphone” time.

Ernest Galloway, a member of the recently formed Mayor’s Youth Coalition Committee, asked the board to place emphasis on repairing ballfields off Sherman Avenue and Mission 66 that he said are unusable because of erosion and a lack of maintenance.

Steve Randle said police making traffic stops are rude with no reason.

Vicksburg’s mayor, who is new, and its two aldermen, who are veterans, will take comments on any topic at the second regularly scheduled meeting of each month, which usually lands on the 10th. Anyone wishing to get on the agenda to address the board can contact the city clerk’s office at 601-631-3716.

Former Mayor Laurence Leyens, who served eight years, started his first term with open comments during all regular meetings, which aired on TV23. Later, saying the sessions got off point and were unproductive, city officials turned off the cameras and set one meeting a month to hear general comments. Under the new administration, the cameras will stay off, but people still have a chance to speak their minds.

“Something needs to be done immediately out there so the kids who live in the area have some place to play,” Galloway said. “I can’t get those kids to use the Halls Ferry fields because they don’t have any transportation.”

South Ward Alderman Sid Beauman, who was parks and recreation department director for eight years before being elected in 2001, said city officials have been trying to address an erosion problem at the field on Sherman Avenue for years. The hillside park was built by the county, he said, and was acquired by the city as part of its annexation in 1990. 

“I don’t know if it can be fixed,” he said. “We’ve tried to fill it, pack it — you name it, we’ve tried it. We’ve seen real problems out there for years. It probably should have never been built on that site.”

North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield added adjoining private property, which also has erosion problems, made attempts to fix the fields difficult because any work done creates problems down the slope.

However, both aldermen and Mayor Paul Winfield said they supported addressing maintenance at the ballfield off Mission 66 near the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard overpass, but Beauman noted past attempts have been thwarted by vandalism.

“On three occasions we’ve rebuilt the concessions there, and all three times they were torn up,” he said, “and it’s not kids — it’s grown-ups.”

“And there’s still vandalism going on there,” Mayfield added.

Randle said Vicksburg residents deserve courtesy, at a minimum, from police.

“They need some form of sensitivity training,” Randle said. “When they pull you over … they’re just downright nasty. They need to be a little more sensitive when they deal with people.”

Randle also said he would like to see more police officers in his neighborhood south of the city off U.S. 61 more often, instead of in the median of the highway patrolling traffic. He said increased community policing is needed if the city expects its residents to help the officers when it comes to reporting crimes and suspicious activity.

“These are some of the things we have already talked to the new (Police) Chief (Walter Armstrong) about … and we will talk about it some more with him at a later time,” Winfield said.

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com