Coastal Mississippi is an amazing region. It’s a collection of thriving coastal communities, each with its own sense of place. At the same time, it’s an economic engine for our state with enormous future potential.
Over the past six years, I’ve had long, aspirational conversations with mayors here on my radio show. Biloxi’s FoFo Gilich, Moss Point’s Billy Knight, Pass Christian’s Kenny Torgeson, Gulfport’s Hugh Keating, and others. These aren’t scripted chamber breakfasts. They’re deep conversations about the hard stuff like infrastructure that doesn’t fix itself, growth that has to be smart, budgets that don’t stretch far enough, and the daily work of making each city better and safer for the people who live there.
Every one of these mayors is in the trenches. They grind in their own cities while also recognizing, more than mayors used to, that a rising tide in one place lifts the others. That is the conversation the Gulf Coast Business Council has been evolving around, and it is the right one. It is the conversation we have sometimes struggled to elevate across the region, except for that time after Hurricane Katrina when we all came together. The Business Council itself, the Knight Nonprofit Center, and Coastal Mississippi Tourism (our first major regional organizational win) are hallmarks of what can happen when we stay focused on the whole region. But equally important work still happens city by city and county by county.
Long Beach is one of many good examples of what that looks like right now.
Mayor Tim Pierce spent 41 years at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, including years as Chief of Planning and Development, where he led strategic planning. He also served as an alderman and longtime president of the Long Beach School Board. That background shows in how he thinks about systems, timelines, and deliverables.
In our conversations on the show, including the most recent one, he has been clear about what he is trying to build. He has asked Cindy Walker, a longtime nonprofit and volunteer leader, to lead the economic development committee that will help shape a vision for the city and turn it into a master plan. That matters because it creates a roadmap for the next five to ten years, so future leaders inherit something concrete instead of starting from scratch every four years.
On the Gateway project, he said the vision is to paint the front door to Long Beach so people driving down Highway 90 actually know they have entered a great community.
“That Gateway project is going to be fantastic,” Pierce said. The goal is to bring eyes to the city, connect the waterfront to downtown, and make visitors realize this is a place worth slowing down for. “We’ve got to get people to realize we have a nice community.”
On the harbor, Pierce has been consistent. He sees it as the jewel that brings people into town, opening up commercial activity, slips, and a reason for residents and visitors to spend time on the water. He has talked about growing up fishing there and what it means for quality of life to reopen it and get it working again. Funding is in place, and the work is moving.
On planning and annexation, he has been direct that Long Beach is still too much of a bedroom community and needs more business. Annexing the industrial park is a practical step that lets the city grow north toward I-10 and start building a stronger commercial base. “I’ve got to bring more business into this city,” he said.
None of this is unique to Long Beach. Gilich has been grinding on infrastructure and tourism assets in Biloxi for years. Casey Vaughan is pushing the Town Commons, Legacy Park, and the Sound Amphitheater as economic drivers in Gautier. Jay Trapani is focused on managing important economic growth, drainage, and lowering flood insurance costs in Waveland while protecting the town’s character. Jay Willis and the Pascagoula team are advancing downtown projects, especially mixed-use, and infrastructure that keeps the city moving. Knight, Torgeson, Keating, and others are doing the same in their cities, working to improve streets, drainage, harbors, downtowns, schools, public safety, and a growing mixed-use downtown base.
The Gulf Coast Business Council’s push for clearer regional priorities is useful precisely because these mayors are already doing the local work. When they can point to the same short list of big regional needs, the whole Coast gets stronger.
Pierce is one mayor among many who are choosing to lead instead of manage the status quo. The Gateway is visible proof in Long Beach. The harbor work and the annexation fight are the harder proof still in progress. The same pattern shows up in other cities if you look closely.
Coastal Mississippi has the assets, the prime location, and the history. What has sometimes been harder to sustain is the kind of regional leadership that finishes what it starts and looks past city and county lines when it helps the region compete, grow, and diversify.
The mayors I have talked with on my show over the past six years show what that looks like in the trenches. Now all of us—mayors, business leaders, supervisors, legislators, and citizens—need to work in those trenches and keep fighting the powerful gravity that has sometimes pulled us back from fully realizing our potential. Let’s all work together to lead, finish the work, and build the Coastal Mississippi we have always known was possible; one that competes, thrives, and lifts every community together.
Our potential is unlimited if we choose to stay focused on the whole.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of SuperTalk Mississippi Media.