‘Sick and tired of being sick and tired’: Flaggs says animal shelter to be completed in September

Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr. during Thursday’s meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen said delays to completing the city’s new animal shelter must come to an end, and soon.

Following months of questions over why the new facility on U.S. Highway 61 South has yet to open, Flaggs addressed several lingering issues before announcing completion is expected in September.

“I have every intention of stop kicking the can as it relates to opening up the shelter for animals in this city,” Flaggs said. “As Fannie Lou Hamer said at the Democratic National Convention, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I do not want to have this gorilla around my neck any longer.”

A number of continuing problems have been cited by city officials as adding to delays to opening the shelter. Among them are completion of the facility’s road and fencing and obtaining an adequate number of cages for cats. In May, the group Friends of the City of Vicksburg Animal Shelter donated $50,000 to go toward the feline cages. Flaggs said Thursday that donation will allow the city to order half of the cat cages needed in order to have them available for a mid-September opening. He added an additional $50,000 will likely need to be spent for the remaining cages necessary to complete the shelter’s inventory.

“The people out there that say that we should have opened the shelter up earlier, they’re right,” Flaggs said. “But there are some things that go with government that they don’t calculate.”

City officials have cited a number of delays they pegged as normal parts of the bidding and construction processes as reasons why the road and fence portion of the project have taken longer than expected.

Director of Community Development Jeff Richardson said those facets of construction are currently in the process of completion.

“The contractor has, I think he submitted all of the paperwork yesterday to the engineering firm,” Richardson said during Thursday’s meeting. “So, it will be on the next agenda.”

The next meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 19 at 10 a.m. at the Robert M. Walker Building.