Aldermen appointed two new members Tuesday to the city tourism board: Fred Marsalis Jr. and Sheila Duffy-Lehrman. They replace Lance Harris and Helen Moss Smith, who recently resigned after several years on the Natchez Convention Promotion Commission.
Marsalis is a personal fitness trainer and event planner-promoter who owns MDP Fitness of Natchez. Duffy-Lehrman is an advertising-marketing professional and mother of Butter Cakery owner Lexi Lehrman of Natchez.
They were among six candidates seeking to fill vacancies on the six-member commission. It’s appointed by Natchez aldermen but is an independent municipal agency that determines how to spend the city’s tourism tax revenues to market the city. It also oversees Visit Natchez, the city’s tourism office.
Mayor Dan Gibson noted Tuesday that two NCPC candidates withdrew from contention because organizations they’re affiliated with receive tourism-related funds from Visit Natchez: incoming Pilgrimage Garden Club president Terrel Williams and Live at Five organizer Sarah Lindsey Laukhuff.
State ethics laws prohibit government board members from allocating public funds that could directly benefit them or their associations.
Another candidate was former Natchez Garden Club president Donna Sessions, who the mayor said would’ve served on the commission with the stipulation her tourism group wouldn’t receive Visit Natchez money.
Marsalis and Duffy-Lehrman will join the other NCPC members: Jennie Guido, John Grady Burns, Robbie Cade-Furdge and Barbara Bruce. The commission in August selected Guido to serve as its chairman to replace Smith as she transitioned off the board.
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