Natchez aldermen work through list of streets to repave

NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen continue to review a list of Natchez streets to repave in what the mayor called “the most significant (street) project in recent memory” with $6 million they’re borrowing through bonds.

Presented Tuesday with an inventory of the city’s 480 streets ranked by conditions in need of improvements, aldermen were told the available funds could cover 50 to 70 streets.

Top-priority streets cited by aldermen include segments of Cemetery, Learned’s Mill, Marin, North Rankin, Auburn, Arlington, St. Charles, Wall and Lower Woodville.

Some of the $6 million is also being earmarked for Morgantown Road, which is being widened and resurfaced with funds from the city and Adams County along with state and federal funds.

The Board of Aldermen could finally decide in November what streets to repave so it can seek contractors interested in doing the job. Work could begin next spring and be finished by the end of 2023, said city Public Works director Justin Dollar.

While there’s “not enough money to do everything we’d love to do” for repaving city streets, the $6 million is “a lot more than the city has spent at one time, at least in recent memory,” said Mayor Dan Gibson.

City street repavement projects in recent years were in 2019 and 2018, when the board allocated about $490,000 from revenues Natchez receives leasing city-owned land to Magnolia Bluffs Casino.

In their meetings about what streets to line up for new overlay, aldermen have discussed whether to evenly divvy out the work among the six wards. However, they’ve indicated they’re mostly adhering to the “master list” that ranks the streets’ conditions in need of upgrading regardless of where they’re located. This “takes the politics out of street paving” as they focus on the city’s needs as a whole, said Ward 3 Alderman Sarah Carter Smith.

This round of street work will include more smaller neighborhood streets rather than major thoroughfares that take large chunks of the funding pie.

The city’s street overlay project comes as the Adams County Board of Supervisors also embarks on a separate initiative with about $7 million borrowed through bonds for county roads that could include a couple of Natchez streets.