NATCHEZ, Miss. — Adams County supervisors will hold a public hearing later this month on their new election districts where voters will be placed as they prepare for the 2023 elections.
The supervisors have been remapping their political borders because population data shows four districts are imbalanced and need to be realigned. Electoral districts are required by law to have about the same number of people.
County Supervisor Kevin Wilson’s District 2 and Supervisor Warren Gaines’ District 5 have too many people and Supervisor Angela Hutchins’ District 3 and Supervisor Ricky Gray’s District 4 have too few, according to data presented in August to the board. Supervisor Wes Middleton’s District 1 has nearly the optimal amount of people and wouldn’t require much population shifts.
There’s a March 1 deadline for candidates to file to run in next August’s party primaries and the November 2023 general election.
The 2020 census shows Adams County’s population has declined since 2010 by nearly 2,800 people – down to about 29,500. This includes about 900 people incarcerated in 2020 at the CoreCivic private prison in Adams County.
The redistricting hearing is set to be at the board’s next regular meeting Nov. 21.
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Adams County supervisors complained that the lack of communications between the Adams County Sheriff’s Office and Natchez Police Department keeps the sheriff and his deputies out of the loop about crime incidents within the city. Sheriff Travis Patten said his agency and the NPD don’t share the same radio frequency, forcing county officers to rely on being told by phone or in person to help city police respond to criminal calls.
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The board reviewed plans for digitizing land records used for appraising the value of land that’s used for determining the amount of taxes Adams County property owners must pay. Supervisors were told Adams County is the only Mississippi county known to still manually key in property sketches for updating property specifications, which is prone to more errors than the digital process.
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The board closed the public out of its discussions Monday about jail security and a potential lawsuit by a disability agency concerned about the county-owned jail.
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