VIDALIA — Several members of the private sector on hand at Tuesday’s meeting on regionalism said they think the local business community is ready to get the regional ball rolling.

Ronnie Bryant, president and CEO of Charlotte Regional Partnership, told the crowd of business and elected leaders that the private sector must lead the charge for a better community. In Charlotte, N.C., the private sector heads a multi-county economic development unit that has been responsible for a massive amount of growth in the area.

Delta Bank President Cliff Merritt said he thinks a change in mindset among business leaders in Ferriday, Vidalia and Natchez makes now the perfect time to start a push toward regionalism.

“We need to let the people that are in control know we are not satisfied with what we’ve been doing,” Merritt said. “It’s time for us to find bottom with our feet and push in a new direction.”

Glenn Green, owner of Paul Green & Associates, agreed.

“The private business sector is going to have to make elected leaders aware of what the voting constituency and taxpaying constituency want,” he said. “Just sitting back and hoping for the best and hoping government is going to take care of you isn’t going to work.”

Tuesday’s meeting was the first step in that direction, Natchez-Adams County Chamber of Commerce Director Debbie Hudson said. The joint meeting of the Natchez, Ferriday and Vidalia chambers brought all parties to the table to discuss the idea of regionally marketing the community.

“This was just a start,” Hudson said after the meeting. “The public (boards) need to listen to the private (sector). Business brings business.”

Hudson said the three chambers have already agreed to meet jointly each quarter.

But Green and Merritt may want to see even more joint meetings. Both said they want to fully explore the option of combining all three chambers into one regional chamber.

“The first thing we have to do is be willing to put aside our personal preferences and move together as a community, knowing there is going to be some collateral damage” Merritt said.

That step is one Green said he thinks the Miss-Lou business community is strong enough to do.

“I think the (private) sector is capable,” he said. “It’s probably an idea or issue that is on the forefront of people’s minds right now more than it was years ago because of the frustration of watching elected officials not work together.

“Now that we realize they aren’t going to, we’ve got to do it.”

But the private sector may not have to go it alone just yet; several elected officials in attendance at the meeting said they liked the idea of regionalism as well.

“I think we can work together,” Natchez Mayor Jake Middleton said. “Trust is the biggest (challenge); we’ve always been at each other. But if we put a board together and try to land the project, we can quit worrying about who gets the pat on the back.

Ferriday Mayor Glen McGlothin recognizes that his town would be the smallest player at the table, but said he’d like to discuss merging his marketing budget with a bigger pie.

“Sometime in the time since those plants shut down (in Natchez), we’ve moved to thinking (Natchez and Adams County) are our enemies,” he said. “They are not. That’s the No. 1 thing you have to get rid of.”

And Adams County supervisors’ President Henry Watts — who would not answer questions after the meeting — said via letter that he supports regionalism as well.

“The regional concept is not new,” he wrote. “I was at a two-day conference on regionalism three and a half years ago in Tupelo. I embraced the idea then, and I do now. A start would be to combine the three local chambers of commerce. Combining the two local EDAs is a concept worth debating and further discussions.”