The City of Oxford Board of Aldermen discussed issues with the city’s utility infrastructure, ongoing and future infrastructure repairs and tourism updates at its Oct. 6 meeting.
Infrastructure strain
City of Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill said the weekend of the Sept. 19 LSU vs. Ole Miss game was a success for Oxford, which welcomed crowds over 10 times its taxpaying population.
“We had more than 211,000 visitors to Oxford, which means there were over 311,000 people in Oxford on Saturday at the football game,” Tannehill said. “The total economic impact is estimated around $109 million.”
However, Oxford infrastructure was strained with all those visitors.
“We have a town of 28,000 taxpayers that have to be able to flush a toilet (when) an LSU game (brings) 311,000 people,” Tannehill said. “We’ve got to have help upgrading that infrastructure.”
Tannehill and Oxford Utilities released statements on Sept. 2 asking Oxford residents to reduce water consumption, specifically outdoor irrigation, as drought conditions persisted.
“To stabilize our system, we are requesting that customers cut back on their watering times by 50%, effective immediately,” Tannehill said in a statement on Facebook. “While we are currently working on multiple infrastructure projects … to add system capacity, these projects do take time.”
Tannehill and Aldermen Kesha Howell Atkinson and Mary Martha Crowe traveled to Washington D.C two weeks ago to meet with Mississippi Sens. Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith. They discussed challenges related to Oxford’s growth and infrastructure needs with the senators, according to Tannehill.
Repairs in progress
The Board of Aldermen also extended the local state of emergency from Winter Storm Fern to address outstanding projects on damaged infrastructure and landscaping across Oxford. This procedural move allows for faster contracting and greater flexibility for city staff to promptly address the remaining repairs.
The board also discussed an emergency declaration for wastewater treatment repairs.
“There’s two large valves that control flow into those tanks. One of them is hopelessly clogged, and one is hopelessly stuck open,” John Crawley, the city engineer, said. “We need to actually dig down and fix those.”
Crawley said the estimated price for the repairs would be $111,066.
The board approved a request from Delta Utilities to work overnight to repair the high pressure gas main that runs up Gertrude Ford Boulevard.
“Rather than creating a nightmare with traffic predictions during the day, they have asked to do that work overnight and do one-lane closures (during) overnight hours as needed from the hours of 7 p.m to 7 a.m.,” Crawley said. “Football game weekends or big weekends, they will stop after Wednesday night, or you can work on Thursdays or Fridays or Saturdays.”
Visit Oxford FY27 Action Plan
Kinney Ferris, executive director of Visit Oxford, outlined the fiscal year 2027 action plan for Visit Oxford, the city’s tourism and destination marketing organization.
To continue catering to the Oxford tourism experience, Ferris said the organization plans to install an interactive digital stand in the Visit Oxford center where visitors can personalize itineraries and find directions that can be sent directly to their phones.
“We are working on a digital interactive kiosk, so think of a welcome center website that you can play with,” Ferris said. “It’s going to be right when you walk in the door, and you can make itineraries there and it’ll give you directions — walking or driving — straight to your mobile device.”
Ferris also said that Oxford has done very well this year in terms of media exposure.
“We have had a record-breaking year with media coverage this past year, so we are going to continue those efforts,” Ferris said. “We are expecting more travel writers and influencers than ever, so we will keep that up.”
Visit Oxford aims to include all parts of Oxford life for tourists.
“We have quarterly meetings with all of our hotel sales managers, as well as our event venues,” ” Ferris said. “Our goal is really to create a more balanced visitation mix. We want to increase those groups, meetings and sports travel, while we continue to strengthen travel.”
Visit Oxford provides meeting partnership grants that organizations can apply to alleviate some of the costs that come with hosting events. Applicants can receive up to $3,000 for promotion, performance fees, meals and lodging.
“Last year, we gave out $104,350, which the ROI (return on investment) was a visitor spend of $10.3 million to our local businesses and hotels,” Ferris said.
Regarding upcoming events in town, Tannehill confirmed that the Christmas parade will be held on Dec. 1, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. This year’s theme is “A Very Oxford Christmas.” Applications to have a float in the parade are open on the Stronger Together Oxford website.
