Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. held a question-and-answer session about his third term in office on Wednesday.

The meeting was open to any Vicksburg residents who wished to voice their concerns about the city directly to Flaggs.

One resident spoke about his concerns about voting precincts.

“Our precincts, when people are going out to vote they’re getting confused,” he said. “I’m wondering if you’re going to get with the county (on that).”

“I have appointed a committee, a municipal committee, to look at the precincts and the overlap of the precincts,” Flaggs responded. “What is confusing is that county precincts overlap with municipal precincts. They aren’t for the same elections. The municipal election is every four years, while the county election is every year.”

Flaggs added that he thinks there are too many precincts, but that he wanted to have the consultation of the county election commissioner in order to move the precinct lines as little as possible.

The portion of the meeting that generated a great response came when several attendees raised their concerns about reckless driving in the city.

Another citizen took the opportunity to tell Flaggs his concerns about traffic safety.

“First of all, I want to really offer my appreciation for what has taken place in the town. I mean, there are obviously positive changes taking place. What I want from you is to understand that there are some things that maybe are not obviously visible to everybody, but yet they need to take place,” he told Flaggs. “And that falls back on traffic control, and enforcement of traffic laws in this town. This town is dangerous to drive in. As a resident, I see it every day. The bottom line is, people do not respect traffic laws in this town.”

Flaggs mentioned that he would like to look at road design as a possible remedy.

“The traffic design for this city may be outdated, and we may have to look at that,” he said.

The Mayor also pointed out that construction which has shut down Lee Road as well as construction on bridges over Interstate 20 has forced much more traffic through Indiana Avenue.

Another citizen spoke up on the issue.

“I think the biggest problem is people don’t obey the speed limit, they’re on their cell phones, they don’t stop, they don’t know the traffic laws. And I don’t ever see any of these people getting stopped,” she said. “And one more thing: I see a lot of cars around here, trucks with trailers, nobody’s got a tag. Are we going to enforce any of these things? I was in Colorado, you can’t talk on your cell phone (while driving). That’s a city ordinance, why can’t we do that here?”

“I don’t think we’re enforcing these (violations) like we should,” Flaggs responded.

Several other members of the public voiced their concerns about moving traffic violations in the city. 

After thanking the attendees for their participation, Flaggs addressed the room, saying, “We’re going to meet with (law enforcement) next week, and we will talk about enforcing the law and doing more citations, especially on moving violations.”