Lately our hurried pace has been quite something to experience. So many meetings, phone calls, events, and even promotional trips for Natchez – the schedule has been full! I am usually one who enjoys making regular posts on social media, but lately, the schedule hasn’t left much time for Facebook.
I do remind myself all the time, and others do as well, that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Yet, with opportunity happening in Natchez, it’s tough to sit idle. We want to make the most of the time we have been given! But then again, the faster we go, the more I am reminded of an adage that rings true especially lately: hurry up – and wait.
It was so rewarding to cut the ribbon recently on a fully renovated Youth Center at North Natchez Park. It was also rewarding to break ground on new tennis courts at Duncan Park while observing, just behind the tennis courts, renovation of ballfields under way. Seeing new playgrounds, new park signs, and renovated bathrooms also reminds us that, when it comes to our parks, we have accomplished much. And at our recent State of the City event, we celebrated countless accomplishments and impressive milestones. Yet there is so much more to do – and waiting has in many ways become the hardest part.
We are ready to begin the street resurfacing project. The contractor has been selected and the bid awarded. We are just now waiting on things to begin.
We have completed plans for the renovation of the Duncan Park Golf Clubhouse. The architect has prepared a great plan, but first bids came in too high. We are now waiting on new bids to be opened in September.
We have had multiple meetings and exciting visits with the development team and design team for the Eola Hotel. Plans are being completed for an amazing restoration project. But we are now waiting on word when all funds will be in place for the $32 million project to proceed.
Plans are complete for the raising of Silver Street at its lowest part and construction of a ramp for American Cruise Lines and a new dock for Viking. We are ready to bid. But we are waiting on final approval of landowners Under the Hill who, for undisclosed reasons of their own, are also in a waiting mode before giving the green light to proceed.
We have plans fully complete for a city-county joint project to renovate several miles of Morgantown Road. But inflated bid prices have exceeded available funds, in the millions, and we are waiting for a revised planning and bidding process to begin.
We have plans almost complete for the renovation of the Natchez Convention Center and Natchez City Auditorium, but we are now waiting for the architect to complete final details that are required before bidding can happen.
And just this week, we had a series of very productive meetings with various commercial airlines executives at a national conference in New Jersey who continue to be very interested in bringing their planes to Natchez. But we are now waiting for them to commit – and waiting on one major airline CEO to make a site visit to Natchez next month – good news, but still a wait.
There is an old saying, “good things are worth the wait”. In every one of these cases I know this to be true. But it can still get frustrating. I ask for prayers, and patience, as we work to tie up these loose ends and fulfill the goals we have set for this first term that is rapidly coming to a close next year. In time, all these things will happen. And they must! Because Natchez Deserves More.
These and other projects have all failed as of now including the Eola, The Depot, the streets again and again, the golf club again, new tennis courts for Duncan Park again, and no new courts at North Natchez Parks again. I don’t think one promise has been fulfilled. I have waited long enough while unknown amounts of money have yet to produce anything but 6 nonprofit economic development associations and workforce development that isn’t being paid for by the county or the school board as the resolution states.