Friday, October 28, 2011
The Vicksburg Post
VCVB expects rise in revenue with move By John Surratt jsurratt@vicksburgpost.com A 3 percent increase in food and lodging tax revenue is expected to come with the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau’s move to the old Levee Street Depot, the Board of Directors said Thursday in approving a $1.13 million budget for fiscal 2012. The budget goes into effect Jan. 1 with the VCVB’s new fiscal year. The budget projects $1.07 million in revenue from the VCVB’s 1 percent share of the state food and lodging tax. That projection is based on current revenues of $1.017 million in tax revenue, about 10 percent more than the $997,500 budgeted for fiscal 2011. Food and lodging tax money comprise 94 percent of the VCVB’s
revenues. The VCVB’s largest expense is advertising and promotions, which totals $534,250. Radio and TV advertising make up 18.4 percent of that total, $209,100. Salaries and benefits are the next major expense at $405,700, with administrative expenses totaling $81,200. In a related matter, the board approved raises for the VCVB’s salaried employees after a 40-minute executive session. Amounts will be determined by Seratt. When the VCVB moves into the Depot — the date for which has not been determined — it will pay the city $500 monthly in rent. Additionally, the city has agreed to pay $150,000 toward the city’s match of a $1.65 million Mississippi Department of Transportation grant to renovate
the building. The payments are part of a 2010 letter of agreement among the city, the VCVB and Vicksburg Main Street. Under the agreement, VCVB and Main Street will sign 20-year leases for space in the Depot. The convention and visitors bureau will share the second floor with the twofloor transportation museum. The third floor will include Main Street offices and a conference room shared by Main Street and VCVB. Seratt said the $150,000 payment is money made from the sale of the VCVB’s old building at Washington and Clay streets. He said there are still some unknown costs associated with the move. He said the $150,000 for the city and an additional $70,000
to help VCVB operations will be moved to the budget from the organization’s $400,000 money market account, leaving a $180,000 balance. In other action, the board: • Approved the September financial reports. • Approved the executive director’s and department reports. Seratt said traffic at the visitors center was down from September 2010, with 12,298 people registering compared to 12,710 during Sept. 2010. He said foreign visitors were up, with 449 international registrations during September compared with 350 in September 2010. He said the largest number of foreign visitors were from the Netherlands, 39, and Germany, with 32.
Common sense or intimidation?
Voter ID initiative dividing state voters By Emily Wagster Pettus The Associated Press KOSCIUSKO — Mary Ikerd has lived in Kosciusko 17 years, and said she sees the same poll workers every election day. Because of that, she said she believes there’s no pressing need to prove her own identity before she votes. “In little towns, everybody knows you,” Ikerd said in Crown Antiques, the shop she runs on the square in Kosciusko, a town of 7,400 in Attala County. Still, come Nov. 8, Ikerd said she will vote for Initiative 27, a proposed constitutional amendment that would require every person voting in Mississippi to show a driver’s license or other governmentissued photo ID at the polls. Ikerd said she would have no problem showing her ID and she believes that in larger cities such as Jackson and Tupelo, where people move in or out more frequently, some might try to pass themselves off as others to cast a ballot. In those cases, she said ID would be a good deterrent. Supporters say the voter ID initiative is a commonsense proposal to help protect the integrity of elections by preventing people from casting ballots in others’ names, or even from voting in the names of dead people. Opponents say that in Mississippi, where black citizens were violently blocked from voting decades ago, requiring ID is tantamount to setting a poll tax that could diminish minority turnout and disenfranchise the poor. The National Conference of State Legislatures says 30 states require all voters to show ID at the polls — many of them in the Deep South. Fourteen of the 30 require photo ID. Nsombi Lambright, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, said that in poor, rural
The associated press
James Wise, 38, says he believes provisions should be made to exempt older people from the voter ID requirement.
Amanda Dean, owner of Josephineís Fine Gifts in Kosciusko, says the voter ID initiative makes sense. areas, many people might lack any form of governmentissued photo ID. She also worries a voter ID law would be applied unevenly, and perhaps unfairly, by poll workers who might not be well trained. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican who is Mississippi’s top elections official, said he supports the voter ID ballot initiative. “We in Mississippi need to step away from where we were 50 years ago. We’ve made a
great deal of progress,” Hosemann said. “A commonsense voter ID to enforce the integrity of the voting for every Mississippian makes sense.” Mississippi law says that if any initiative passes, it would take effect 30 days later. But the process could take longer for voter ID, and there’s no guarantee it would ever be implemented. Because of Mississippi’s history of racial discrimination, the U.S. Justice Depart-
ment must approve any changes to the state’s election laws to ensure the changes don’t dilute minority voting strength. Officials say they can’t predict whether the Justice Department would approve a voter ID requirement in Mississippi. Hosemann said he has been talking to Georgia officials about how that state implemented its voter ID law, which was enacted in 2006 and has been upheld in court decisions. Georgia requires a photo ID, and Hosemann said the state provided free IDs to about 25,000 voters who lacked acceptable identification. He said he’d like to take similar steps in Mississippi. Kosciusko resident James Wise, 38, who is black, said he would have no qualms about showing ID to vote. Wise said he believes there’s a generational divide about voter ID. He said he thinks younger people, regardless of race, would be less hesitant about showing identification than older people. He said older people should be exempt from the requirement.
A3
Miss. oyster season shuts down BILOXI (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, which opened state waters to a limited oyster season Monday, is shutting down the season until further notice. All areas and reefs will close at 3 p.m. Saturday. Scott Gordon, DMR shell-
fish bureau director, says the action is being taken in order to better conserve the oyster resource. He said the surge of fresh water from the Mississippi River flooding in the spring and warm water temperatures resulted in a significant amount of oyster deaths.