The Board of Mayor and Aldermen could be going to the Legislature for help in resolving a problem affecting a proposed veterans transition center.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. Monday asked members of the Vicksburg Warren Veterans Transition Center board to prepare a letter to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen requesting a local and private, or special, bill authorizing the board to go on private property and improve a private drive to the property from Court Street.

He also instructed the group to include a request for matching funds or in-kind work from the city to help the center, which is a 501c(3) organization, with repairing the drive. The city is allowed under state law to assist 501c(3) organizations with matching funds for projects.

The veterans transition center is presently being prepared for opening. It is geared for recently discharged veterans to help them readjust to civilian life by providing counseling and assistance finding jobs, and will be managed by an administrator hired by the board.

But members of the center’s board told the Board of Mayor and Aldermen at a Monday work session people are having trouble locating the property making it difficult to complete the work. The problem, they said, is the building’s Court Street address.

The building’s address is 1702 Court St., but the building does not face Court Street. It sits about 100 yards west of Court Street and faces the drive.

“I have got to have an address, and that address isn’t where the building is,” center board president Eva Ford said. “We need an identity. I can’t get insurance; I can’t have a house floating around here without insurance. I can’t get lights, because nobody can find the building. Court Street doesn’t go down there.”

Because an attempt by center board members to get a Maxwell Street address from Vicksburg Warren 911 was unsuccessful, the board members met with Flaggs and Aldermen Michael Mayfield and Willis Thompson and asked the city to make the private drive an extension of Maxwell Street, which intersects with the east side of Court Street across from the drive.

City attorney Nancy Thomas, however, said the city was prohibited by state law from doing any work on private property. Also, Thomas said, the drive has a 20-foot easement and city ordinance requires a 50-foot easement for city streets. And because the drive runs along the Kansas City Southern Railroad tracks, the railroad has an easement the city would have to address before improving or building a road, Flaggs said.

“I’m not going to give you false hope,” he said, “But when you start giving a street address, you’re talking about easement. The railroad’s going to fight. Kansas City is not going to give you the right of way for the street. It’s a liability.”

Flaggs suggested the local and private bill, which would allow the city to work on the drive. The board received a similar bill in 2016 to clean the Tate Family Cemetery on South Frontage Road at Cypres Centre Boulevard. He recommended the financial assistance as an alternative if the bill did not pass.

Ford initially opposed the idea. “The Legislature’s not going to put our needs first,” she said.

Mayfield said the board meets Jan. 31 with county officials and the county’s legislative delegation to discuss bills in the current session of the Legislature. He said the center’s situation would be discussed then.

Thomas suggested that until the issue is settled, the group could install a sign showing where the building is to alleviate the problem getting insurance.

“If you had a designated drive, and you had a sign ‘1702 Court St.,’ showing that, I believe that would probably resolve the insurance issues with an address, because obviously, that place had been occupied previously, and I’m sure those people, whoever occupied it prior to that, probably had insurance there. And the address had been Court Street all the time.”