Golden Triangle mayors meet for 2022 Mayor’s Summit

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI) – The Golden Triangle mayors have more things in common.

Mayors from towns in the Golden Triangle are coming together to find new solutions to some old problems they’re all facing. During a Mayor’s Conference at the Communiversity Thursday, these town leaders acknowledged that they’re losing population and struggling to fight crime.

“I think of the things that we all talk about that we saw a common thread between the importance of education in our community and how that affects poverty and crime and also deal with how you are able to recruit business and industry to your areas, So we were sharing ideas of things that we are doing in our community to try to keep our kids involved in activities we want to see rising test scores and lower crime rates,” said Columbus Mayor Keith Gaskin.

Long-term plans require long-term funding, and the Golden Triangle mayors are looking to find money where they can.

“Well, one of the things that we can talk about here and we are trying to be more aggressive in Columbus is going after grant dollars from the state federal level but also from private foundation and industry, and so some of the things we talked about today were things that they are able to bring to their communities without costing the tax payers in dollars at all,” said Mayor Gaskin.

These mayors may share common issues and say they find strength through collaboration and conversations.

“I think we are stronger as a group than we are separate, I think we can promote economic development better as a region to attract prospective industry,” said West Point Mayor Rod Bobo.

The Golden Triangle mayors will continue to monitor improvements within the Region.