Roadways and education were the hot topics among Vicksburg business leaders Wednesday.

The Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce met for its final monthly luncheon of 2015 at the Vicksburg Convention Center. Wednesday’s Chamber luncheon was hosted by the state chamber of commerce, the Mississippi Economic Council and sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Mississippi.

The state chamber has visited multiple cites across Mississippi on its Pacesetter tour, which was designed to address transportation infrastructure, health and productive workforce and economic competitiveness.

President and CEO of the MEC, Blake Wilson, spoke on those topics in a presentation interspersed with videos and voting. During the talk Wilson played videos of Gov. Phil Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, speaker of the house Philip Gunn, chair of the transportation taskforce Joe Sanderson Jr. and more giving updates on the positive direction of the state’s future, budget, unemployment and test scores.

People in attendance were also given the opportunity to share their opinion on Mississippi’s outlook through a digital voting system. With hand- held remotes, the crowd could answer the poll question displayed in screen with results scene in real time.

“We have our own strengths in this community and we need to see and take an inventory of who we are and who we can go after rather than just a shotgun approach to economic development,” Jane Flowers, executive director of the Vicksburg Warren County Chamber of Commerce, said.

Wilson said on average Mississippians spend $640 annually on detours and vehicle wear and tear because of poor road conditions, and the people’s votes said they are most concerned with maintaining current roads as opposed to expanding or creating new ones.

The topic of charter schools brought up mixed reviews with a split vote of 24.29 percent both saying they strongly agree or strongly disagree with having the schools. However, a majority of 54.41 percent said they were OK with students being able to cross school district lines to attend charter schools.

Almost half of the business leaders at the luncheon, 46.91 percent, believed their children and grandchildren would be able to find good paying jobs in the state with the rest being split between thinking their children would have to leave the state and those who did not know. Most of the votes by these Warren County residents showed an optimistic outlook on the future with people seeing the state as a place that will emerge economically in the next 10 years.

“We’re seeing so far on the roadshow, we’ve done about six of these so far, that optimism is generally higher than it was back a few years ago,” Wilson said.

Compared to other Southern states, the vote was nearly identical among those who believed Mississippi was better, worse or the same. As for creating jobs, 51.25 percent believed Warren county was somewhat competitive compared to the rest of Mississippi.

“You’ve got to decide what is your strength,” Wilson said. “What companies are you best able to locate? What kind of lifestyle are you trying to bring to Vicksburg? What kind of people are you trying to bring in? What is your best prospect? And be the best at selling that. Declare what you want to go after. Don’t define your success by what some other community has done. Define your success by what you want.”

Flowers really took his words to heart and said this was one of the most important points made at the luncheon.

“The take away that I had from this meeting today was we are not like other cities in Mississippi,” Flowers said. “We in Vicksburg have to decide what we look like and what we need and go after that.”

Wilson said the voting results were typical compared with the rest of the state, but that Vicksburg did seem to have a little more optimism.

“We’re obviously on the right track. We still got some challenges down there, but this community is feeling good,” Wilson said. “That’s an involved, active chamber.”