NATCHEZ, Miss. — City Clerk Servia Fortenberry is resigning next month. Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson and city aldermen are planning to begin searching for her replacement this week.
The new clerk will be the sixth person to hold the office in six years.
In announcing Fortenberry’s resignation at Tuesday’s board meeting, Gibson only said she was leaving City Hall on Nov. 15 for an opportunity elsewhere. The mayor and aldermen praised Fortenberry for improving the city’s financial management, which had been plagued by incompetence, high staff turnover and personnel shortages before she was hired two years ago.
“My hat goes off to you and your staff . . . (for) moving the city clerk’s office forward,” Alderman Felicia Irving told Fortenberry. “We are a lot better today than when we came in 2016.”
She is Natchez’ fifth city clerk – not including at least two interim clerks — since aldermen in 2016 converted the post to an appointed job rather than elected, as it had been the past century. Fortenberry was McComb’s city clerk before taking the Natchez post in November 2019.
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The mayor and aldermen are moving forward with plans to sell the old Natchez General Hospital after getting appraisals that it’s worth around $100,000
Ginger and James Hyland have offered to buy the blighted city-owned property. They own The Towers antebellum estate behind the old hospital.
A divided city board in 2017 voted for a medical foundation to get the building and convert it into apartments for elderly residents, but the deal was nullified in 2020 after Dan Gibson became mayor. The Hylands and more than 50 other Natchez residents protested having the apartments in their neighborhood. They sued the city to block the property deal, but the Mississippi Court of Appeals last year threw out their challenge. The mayor then broke a 3-3 board tie in November to cancel the agreement with the foundation.
In receiving two appraisals Tuesday of the former hospital — $100,000 and $110,000 – Gibson said the property values will be used in negotiations for a sale.
No details were publicly discussed at Tuesday’s board meeting about what the Hylands plan to do with old hospital next to their two-century-old mansion and tourist attraction.The city acquired General Hospital in 2013 after the previous owner defaulted on paying property taxes. Built in 1925, it was Natchez’ main hospital until what’s now Merit Health Natchez was built 1960. General Hospital has since has been apartments and a shelter for battered women.
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The Board of Aldermen approved giving $5,000 to Natchez Children’s Services. The agency helps abused and neglected children. It’s recently suffered federal budget cuts. Aldermen voted to allocate federal funds Natchez has received to help recover from the economic and societal impact of the COVID pandemic.
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Improvements continue at the Natchez Visitors Center that the federal government got from the city last year, said Natchez National Historical Park Superintendent Kathleen Bond. She pointed to a $500,000 reroofing project that’s underway. Also on the to-do list is an air-conditioning overhaul that’s estimated to cost about $3 million.
In meeting with the Board of Aldermen and mayor, Bond also said negotiations are underway for a lessee to manage the visitors center’s operations for providing tourists with information, tickets and other services to promote Natchez tourist attractions.
Aldermen in 2020 donated the building to the National Park Service to relieve the city from the financial burdens of maintaining the facility by the Mississippi River bridges.
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The mayor swore in seven new police officers, which he said is an especially large number of new recruits for the Natchez Police Department. The city has been working harder in recent months to enlist more police officers with higher pay.
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