Mayor shares updates on City projects at breakfast event

USM’s Gulf Park Campus’s Hardy Hall ballroom was packed at this year’s annual Long Beach Chamber of Commerce Breakfast with the Mayor event on Tuesday, October 10, where Mayor George Bass shared a number of updates on the completion and progress of City projects, including repair work at the Long Beach Harbor that has been underway since Hurricane Zeta battered the harbor back in late October of 2020.

While some repairs are complete, there is still much work to do. Mayor Bass says repairs to the Harbormaster Building are expected to be complete in 2024 and that the southeast shoreline bulkhead is still under construction and is scheduled to be finished in early 2024.

The mayor acknowledged widespread frustration with the delay in completing all the needed harbor repairs, and the importance the harbor has for locals, such as crabbers and fishermen, who make their living on the water. Bass told the crowd the City has been wrangling with FEMA over the repairs, which has led the City to ask for arbitration to get back on track and eventually be able to carry out the much-needed repairs to the harbor.

“We’re still fighting for our harbor,” Bass assured the crowd. “Our Board [of Aldermen] is ready to fight.”

Bass also provided updates on the progress of several major projects going on throughout the city, including work on the historic Quarles House, which, when complete, will be home to a welcome center for visitors. He also shared the ongoing progress with Fire Station Number 3, located on Johnson Road in west Harrison County, where a building under construction can now be seen, as well as the latest information on infrastructure projects throughout Long Beach.

In closing, Bass praised the City of Long Beach, the Board of Aldermen, firefighters and organizer Caitlin Kelly, as well as others, for helping to expedite, give approval and secure funding for the implementation of a Safe Haven Baby Box at Central Fire Station in Long Beach, which provides a safe, and in some cases, life-saving, option for newborns to be dropped off safely and anonymously by parents who for whatever reason cannot care for them. Long Beach was the first city in the state of Mississippi to launch the Safe Haven Baby Box program.

“The Safe Haven Baby Box is one of things I am most proud of,” Bass told the audience, pointing out that other mayors throughout the state had called him to ask how they can participate in such a program. “If only one baby is saved, It’s worth it.”

At the meeting, Bass appeared to be the picture of health, although he’s been battling and getting treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer which affects the immune system. Bass says he’s in eighty percent remission, having his last scan in August.