Natchez embarks on beautification project

NATCHEZ. Miss. – A beautification project for Natchez will include making Martin Luther King Street look better and tearing down six dilapidated structures.

The Board of Aldermen on Monday voted to hire landscaping and construction companies for the $60,000 project.

All of Martin Luther King Street from Orleans Street northward to Pilgrim Boulevard will receive landscaping improvements along its curbs and sidewalks. Mayor Dan Gibson has said he wants to make this two-mile Natchez thoroughfare “the most beautiful Martin Luther King (street) in America.”

Landscaping work will also be performed at the Liberty Road-Seargent Prentiss Drive bridge area.

In city officials’ efforts to clean up blighted areas, six condemned structures are being torn down on streets that include MLK, St. Catherine, and Daisy.

Using $67,000 the mayor and board had previously set aside for the project, about $21,000 is being spent for the demolitions and $40,000 for mowing, weeding, trimming, and cleanups on MLK and the Liberty Road-Seargent Prentiss Drive intersection.

While Gibson noted more is needed to address the city’s blighted areas, this is all the city can afford to take on now. There is a list of about 150 parcels that need mowing and 50 structures slated for demolition.

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The city is facing the loss of federal transit funds because it won’t finish an audit on time, but Gibson expressed confidence that won’t happen. He said he expects an extension will be allowed to complete the audit so the city won’t be deprived of federal dollars. This reprieve would come after the new administration takes office when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated next month.

The city was required to finish the audit by the end of the year, but accountants encountered complications in evaluating the city’s spending of federal funds for the 2019 fiscal year, Gibson said.

“We have to get this caught up and not delay again,” the mayor said.