City of Tallulah focuses on economic development

VICKSBURG, Miss. (VDN) — The City of Tallulah focuses on Economic Development to help move the Northeast Louisiana City forward to greater business success for its residents.

City of Tallulah’s current Mayor Yvonne Lewis helped organize a public forum for local business leaders and residents held Tuesday, June 16. The goal was for locals to hear first hand the many ways the city is organizing for a brighter future using the Tallulah Brownfield Program.

Mayor Lewis addressed the crowd and said the city is ready to make the next steps in the Brownfield grant phase.

Diana Day with Terracon, the company contracted to help the city with the Brownfield Program, was also on hand to answer questions.

“The city was awarded a $500,000 EPA Brownfield assessment grant. With that we were doing site inventory, community outreach, site assessments, and there are planning activities involved. With those planning activities, there is a revitalization plan, which is being funded with this grant,” said Day.

Day said a vital component of the grant is community input. All attendees of the event were encouraged to write down ideas and share them with leaders.

The goal of the project is to learn details on what local residents would like to see added to Tallulah in order to keep residents shopping and enjoying life without the need to travel long distances for things such as shopping for clothing, nail salon services or a nice place to take the family to eat.

Blake Reed, also addressed the crowd to explain, “This is not about questions of funding. That comes later.”

From the vision aspect of the grant, the goal is to make quality of life improvements for the residents of Madison Parish and Tallulah.

Reed said the company has already spent more than 100 hours in the community learning directly from residents what they thought of the city.

“Tallulah is a story of triumph. We need to invest in what we have here because Tallulah has deep historical connections to the delta blues. We heard so much about community and how you were once thriving, how you want to get back to where you were,” said Reed.

It was also said that Tallulah’s median age is 33.8 which is far below the median age for the State of Louisiana or the U.S. median age. Also, researched showed 33 percent of residents are below the age of 25. The average yearly income for Tallulah is $38, 829. Due to these factors, leaders will be very selective to make sure the community can support any recommendations made for the city.

Although, several area showed the City of Tallulah is leaking money to other cities such as Monroe or Vicksburg, the city was actually gaining $15 million annually due to I-20 travelers passing through the city.

Several of the action items pitched to the community included a revamped Fire Station near an exchange site that would include services such as a UPS store, printing site and other services. Coffee shop renderings were also shown where there is currently a block of dilapidated buildings in the downtown area.

Another idea that was floated was a digital revitalization of the old Coke Cola Building converted into a sit-down restaurant.

A different rendering showed the current guard rail, which runs the length of Brushy Bayou that cuts through the middle of town, turned into a boardwalk with a pergola with a roof and provided access to the water. Other ideas surrounding the bayou was a kayak launch to help make the bayou an appealing aspect to visiting Tallulah.

The Stand Tall initiative was announced as well the focus on residents standing tall to be apart of Tallulah with its rich cultural importance and heritage as the soul of the Louisiana Delta. It stresses on the people of the city coming together as a unified front and be a part of a beautification project by taking a stand for Tallulah’s future.

The program concluded with a list of five action items for residents, which are as follows:

1. Remember that you are the chief story teller. People are encouraged to share the rich history of Tallulah.
2. Pick one building and have a volunteer clean up day. An example was to add string lights and offer a free concert.
3. Beautify one intersection in town. Residents were encouraged to maintain foliage and even paint a crosswalk after receiving DOT’s permission.
4. Plan one community wide multi denominational pot luck dinner to drive the community to get back together again.
5. Additionally, with the city’s young population, is was encouraged to begin a junior leadership council focused on hearing what the youth in the community would like for their town to look like and become.

“Remember, this is not the end. This is only the beginning,” said Reed. “We will continue to evolve this plan over time.”

Mayor Lewis said the city can make the changes.

“No one will be expecting this from Tallulah, but we can show everybody along the I-20 corridor, we can do this ourselves,” Said the Mayor. “Once the people in Baton Rouge see that Tallulah has taken Tallulah into its own hands, and that we are going to build our own future, they are going to come and help us. Because a stronger Northeast Louisiana means a stronger Louisiana.”

Mayor Lewis said she has full confidence in the community.

“One thing I know about this community, we can do this. We can come together, and we can make this really happen,” said Mayor Lewis.