Natchez-Adams County’s two governing boards can continue funding the community’s business-recruitment agency. Gov. Tate Reeves approved legislation for this last Thursday. The previous law for Natchez Inc. had expired in September.
House Bill 1440 authorizes the Natchez Board of Aldermen to give Natchez Inc. the $100,000 it’s been annually budgeting the past five years for the public-private agency. The Adams County Board of Supervisors can allocate $165,000 a year. Natchez Inc. also receives private funds.
Local governments need the state’s permission to donate funds to a nonprofit organization such as Natchez Inc. The 2016 law for this expired in September. Such state laws are enacted at the request of city and county government leaders.
The Mississippi House initiated the bill in January and the Senate adopted it early this month.
Natchez Inc. was established in 2010 as the economic-development arm for Natchez and Adams County. Vidalia, La., next door and the private group Natchez Now are also partners. The agency headed by Chandler Russ with a Board of Directors works to recruit, retain and expand businesses in the Miss-Lou area for more jobs.
In its efforts to lure new businesses, it provides them economic and demographic information, helps them find sites and buildings to occupy and directs them to state and local financial incentives. The agency also focuses on workforce training.
The governor signed the Natchez Inc. bill into law the same day he announced last Thursday that Adams County’s Belwood industrial park is among several Mississippi locations selected to receive state site-development grants. About $1.8 million has been earmarked for Adams County to finish the levee being built to protect the flood-prone Belwood site by the Mississippi River.
Natchez Inc. has been working for years to get an industry to locate there. Velocys has an option to acquire the county-owned land and build a biomass-fuel refinery. Plans are for a 2023 groundbreaking. The billion-dollar Delta Fuels plant will process wood debris from area timberlands to convert into jet fuel. It’s projected to create about 100 jobs.
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