NATCHEZ, Miss. – The Adams Board of Supervisors held its final meeting of the four-year term Monday – the last for three members rejected by voters in the recent elections.
Supervisors Calvin Butler, Mike Lazarus and David Carter will be replaced next month by three freshmen: a former county road department employee, the son of a former Natchez mayor and the only Republican holding office in Adams County government.
New supervisors Warren Gaines, Wes Middleton and Kevin Wilson in January will be joining current board members Angela Hutchins and Ricky Gray to lead Adams County’s operations for the next four years.
Lazarus, the county board’s longest-serving member and most loquacious, leaves his District 1 post after 12 years there. “It’s been fun,” said Lazarus, whose sentiments were echoed by Butler and Carter as they spoke at their last scheduled meeting Monday.
Lazarus did say the job comes with challenges. “Every day you’ve got to make decisions. I hope I’ve made the right decisions.”
He noted decisions by county supervisors can have long-lasting impact, such as setting a multimillion-dollar-a-year budget, maintaining county roads and luring new jobs-producing industries to Adams County. “When you cast those votes, it’s there forever,” Lazarus said.
Lazarus lost the August Democratic primary to Middleton, the son of former Natchez mayor Jake Middleton who helps operate his family-owned janitorial supply business.
Butler, who’s been president of the county board the past four years, represents District 5. First elected in 2011, he was defeated in the August primary by Gaines, who worked for the Adams County road department in recent years.
Wilson beat Carter in last month’s general election for the District 2 supervisory position. Wilson is the only Republican holding an Adams County office — with the exception of Robert Greene, a Republican elected in November to the obscure county post of county surveyor.
Wilson is the first GOP supervisor since Sammy Cauthen served on the county board before losing his re-election in 2007. Carter — a rarity in local government as an independent unaffiliated with a political party — served two terms.
Wilson, owner of oil-, timber- and commercial real estate-related businesses, has been an outspoken critic of the Natchez-Adams County school board. He filed a a 2017 lawsuit set to be heard Dec. 11 at the Mississippi Supreme Court challenging the school board’s plans for financing campus building improvements.
Gray, who begins his second term in 2020, said the two county board veterans and three new supervisors will have disagreements, but they ultimately must be “all about moving Adams County forward.”
The supervisors will take their oaths of office at the turn of the new year and hold their first regular meeting Jan. 6.