Heidel: Cooperation key to prosperity

Natchez Staff

Published Wednesday, April 16, 2003

NATCHEZ - Three years ago, Vicksburg and Warren County had dozen community-wide organizations with a dozen different agendas competing for the same funds.

As a result, all the agencies were underfunded, the area's congressional delegation was getting mixed messages about which projects most needed federal funds, and the area's growth was stifled.

Then, in 2001, those organizations decided to form an alliance, meeting once a month to set a common agenda for growth and traveling once a year to Washington to present their wish list to senators and representatives.

That type of cooperation is the number-one key to economic and community growth, veteran economic developer Jimmy Heidel told the Natchez-Adams Community Alliance at its Wednesday meeting.

"And our goal is to have something like that here," said Fred Middleton, chairman of the Natchez-Adams County Chamber of Commerce, one of the organizations leading the push for an alliance in this area.

In Vicksburg-Warren County's case, its chamber, convention center, convention and visitors bureau and historic foundation and its preservation and beautification organizations, to name just a few groups, formed an alliance in 2001.

Since then, the alliance has raked in millions of federal and state dollars for such projects as an interpretive center and museum, low-income housing, transportation and more, Heidel said.

Heidel, former executive director of the then-Mississippi Department of Economic and Community Development, now directs Warren County's port commission, economic development foundation and chamber of commerce. They're not alone. Alliances have also formed in Hattiesburg and Jackson County, raising millions of dollars in private funds for capital improvements. Regional alliances are also being formed across state lines, Heidel said.

What does it take to form such an alliance? Putting personalities and past disagreements aside to work for a better future, Heidel said.

"We (in Vicksburg) invited everybody to the table, whether we disagreed or not," Heidel said. "A lot of people didn't want to be in that room."

The result of a year's worth of such talks, was "that instead of 13 or 14 different voices, we now have one voice" for economic and community development in that area, Heidel said.

After the meeting, which was held at Copiah-Lincoln Community College's Natchez campus, many said they agreed with Heidel's presentation.

"We now have a roadmap for what we have to do," said Michael Winn.

"The main thing is coming together and sharing information. We need one voice, one organization, Š and we need to prioritize the most important projects we have to work on."

"Working together is the key," said Tammi Mullins. "That's leaving personalities outside the door and not thinking about your own power or position."