NATCHEZ, Miss. – The mayor and aldermen said they’ll consider doing a feasibility study for enlarging Natchez to include residents living on the outskirts.
This comes at the request of former Natchez mayors Tony Byrne and Phillip West, who met Tuesday with current Mayor Dan Gibson and the Board of Aldermen.
Byrne cited the city’s declining census numbers of the past 60 years showing population is down by nearly 10,000 people. “If you don’t grow, you die,” Byrne said. He suggested the city could incorporate the Beau Pre, Lagrange and Broadmoor residential areas outside Natchez.
Aldermen put off a decision on whether to move forward with the former mayors’ request to consider an annexation study. “We want to see what all is involved before we (do a study),” Gibson said.
He expressed confidence the city’s population has actually grown since the 2020 census showed about 14,500 residents.
“It was said we’re dying. That’s not true. We are not a dying city,” said Gibson, who pointed to the recent rise in home purchases and commercial activities.
Byrne said all the other five living former Natchez mayors join him and West in asking aldermen to consider annexation: Darryl Grennell, Butch Brown, Jake Middleton, Hank Smith and David Armstrong.
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The mayor and aldermen are having difficulties finding a qualified replacement for former city planning director Rico Giani, so the city board Tuesday approved contracting former city planner Phil Walker on an interim basis. Walker is currently a Nashville-based urban-planning consultant who was Natchez’ planning director in 1991-93.
Since Giani left as city planning director earlier this month, Gibson said, about a dozen people have applied to replace him but are not qualified.
The city planner reviews requests by businesses and propertyowners for land-use and building-change permits for the Natchez Planning Commission and Natchez Preservation Commission to approve. In addition to those duties, Walker will help find a permanent city planner, Gibson said.
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The mayor and aldermen received a report Tuesday about the state historic preservation grant awarded last week for repairing the city-owned antebellum mansion Auburn at Duncan Park along with the adjacent billiard hall and playground pavilion. Nearly $300,000 is being provided for this, with about $234,000 coming from the state Department of Archives & History and $60,000 funded by the city.
Plans are for Auburn’s water-damaged front columns to be repaired, the billiard hall being restored to be an event venue and the playground pavilion’s restrooms to be refurbished.
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The mayor said the Natchez-Adams County animal shelter is getting overcrowded and efforts are underway to house strays in other facilities in Vidalia and Madison.
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City officials have ordered the removal of painted murals on a building where Martin Luther King Street intersects with St. Catherine and Jefferson streets. The mayor said the paintings in the historic “Triangle” section were not reviewed and approved by the Natchez Preservation Commission as required by law.
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Gibson said he remains hopeful about getting commercial passenger air service for Natchez-Adams County, and he named two airlines that could be interested: Southern and Contour. However, the city and county will have to come up with $500,000 to secure one.
While efforts to lure them have been ongoing since last year, the mayor said Tuesday the $500,000 needs to be set aside as a form of “collateral” for an airliner to put the Natchez-Adams County Airport on its routes. The county-owned airport has been without regular commercial passenger service since the mid-1990s.
No thank you. The terrible track record of the City the past 50 years in irresponsible spending, numerous federal and state law legal violations, rigged personnel promotion schemes not based on merit, paying line public employees poverty-level wages, gutting the City to achieve political ends, dubious insurance schemes, aldermen dropping the ball on contracts, aldermen putting the City in direct or indirect competition with non-subsidized businesses, terrible public financing schemes, steering public contracts to contractors looting the City fisk, a pitiful budget process designed to limit public input, an inability since the 1970s to manage recreation, unlawful transfers of public property to non-profits, and the root, hair-brained scheme to expand the city limits to the full extent of county limits in a state that refuses to allow consolidated forms of government speaks loudly against this nonsense. The better approach is to dissolve the city and allow the county to run the entire county. Re-incorporation of a dissolved City as a village or small town that forces responsible stewardship might be an option, not raising taxes on county residents who are in the county in large part as a rejection of city expansion. In short, this City has failed to earn any trust in expansion. The other option is to approach the legislature for a trial at consolidated government. We do not need overlapping boards in this small, rural area. Among others, Charles Evers believed this.