NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors voted 3-2 to hire a Texas-based company to be the new county engineer. IMS of Houston will replace Jordan, Kaiser and Sessions, the Natchez firm that’s been serving Adams County for decades with JKS manager Jim Marlow being the designated county engineer in recent years.
The county board closed the public out of their discussions Monday about the county engineering services and why IMS was selected. After emerging from the closed-door meeting, the supervisors voted to hire IMS with no open discussion about their decision. Voting for IMS were supervisors Angela Hutchins, Ricky Gray and Warren Gaines. Voting against: Wes Middleton and Kevin Wilson.
IMS – headquartered in Houston with branch offices in Jackson, New Orleans and elsewhere – boasts of being one of the largest black-owned engineering firms in the United States.
The county engineer provides an array of public services, such as managing road, bridge and levee construction and maintenance.
JKS was established in 1954 and has been the county engineer throughout the years. The board’s decision to sever contractual ties with Natchez-based JKS comes eight months after firm co-founder Hayden Kaiser died last April and as Marlow nears retirement.
State law does allow government boards to close meetings to the public to discuss the performance of employees.
With the supervisors closing the public out of their discussions Monday, it’s uncertain why IMS was selected over JKS and how much IMS will be paid with taxpayers’ dollars.
Middleton said after the meeting that the three board members favoring IMS just wanted to “go on a different path,” but he “wanted to stay local with JKS and employ local people.”
IMS’ website lists various engineering projects it’s worked on in Houston, New Orleans, Shreveport, Jackson, Greenville, Moss Point, Memphis, Baltimore and elsewhere.
Also at Monday’s meeting – the first of the new year – supervisors unanimously elected Hutchins to be board president for 2021. The first-ever black female Adams County supervisor — and the board’s longest-serving member with nine years in office — Hutchins replaces Gray. County board presidents serve one-year terms to moderate board meetings and perform other administrative duties. Middleton was elected board vice president.
To this author and the citizens of Adams County, this article make it sound like JKS is going out of business.
I have been an owner of this firm for 5 years, now sole owner. I also have 30 years experience as a civil engineer in this community with a very reputable record.
JKS employees18 people that live and pay taxes in this community and were looking to hire more until Monday’s actions by the Board of Supervisors. We employ 2 registered engineers, 2 engineers in training and 3 registered land surveys of which all have impeccable records.
Please know that JKS has been and plans to continue being a viable business in our community.