The city is declaring war on vacant and derelict commercial buildings in Vicksburg.

“There’s absolutely and emphatically too many abandoned commercial buildings in this city,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said at the start of Monday’s meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen. “There are, absolutely and emphatically too many in close proximity to City Hall.

The mayor said he wants to begin cracking down on commercial building owners who have let their properties run down like the board has been coming down on homeowners who have let their property run down.

He told community development director Victor Gray-Lewis he would have a list of the vacant commercial buildings later in the week.

The board has been taking a tougher stance on city code violations in residential areas, forcing people to clean up their yards and demolish derelict buildings. In some cases, if the property owners don’t comply, the city hires a contractor and bills the property owner. If the owner doesn’t pay, a lien is placed against the property.

Flaggs wants to take the same action against the commercial property owners who aren’t keeping up their property.

“We cannot continue to come in here and chastise the little man, the small guy, and take his property from 60 days with 30 days progress and then let these big old giant buildings — one next door (the old post office building),” he said.

“People have got all this money and look as these (vacant commercial) buildings, and then you want to keep beating up on these little folks about a car in their yard or a dump truck in their yard, and then you walk these big old buildings and nobody says nothing. That’s embarrassing to me.”

Flaggs said he walked around the city and counted 12 vacant commercial buildings last week.

“I can throw a rock from here and hit most of them; particularly the two on Clay Street. That’s unsettling.”

If the board is going come down on small, residential property owners and make them remove derelict buildings, he said, “Then you’re going to start taking some big buildings down.”

Flaggs said he is considering using the city’s $3 million reserve fund to finance a program to remove the derelict commercial buildings.

“I don’t care how much it costs,” he said. “If these folks can’t maintain these buildings, then let’s tear them down; take ’em down. Kuhn Memorial Hospital isn’t the only blighted area in this city; Clay Street’s got three of them. This is not a third world country; this is Vicksburg, Mississippi.

“Big boy, rich boy, we’re coming at you.”

North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield agreed with Flaggs.

“There’s some people out there that are actually thumbing their noses at this board,” he said. “You all have heard me say this … if we don’t act on what we see, then they’re going to continue to do the same thing.

“There are abandoned buildings that have been sitting there for years with no attention whatsoever being paid to. I’m glad to hear you speak this morning that you feel as I do that it’s time to take action with some of the things we see on a daily basis,” he told Flaggs.

“Hopefully from here, we’ll stop spinning out wheels and get something done.”

South Ward Alderman Alex Monsour said he has talked to Flaggs about the commercial buildings. He said he told Gray-Lewis to send emails to property owners to discuss the status of their buildings, “And I’ve been given excuse, after excuse, after excuse why we can’t meet.

“We just want to look at these buildings and inspect them. Some of them look pretty bad.” He commended the property owners who have developed and improved their buildings on Washington Street. He said it is time for the owners of the derelict buildings “to do what you’re supposed to do. What everybody else is doing. We’re not going to sit by and let this happen any more.”