NATCHEZ, Miss. –Adams County supervisors said they’re eager to rework the six-year-old joint recreation program with the Natchez mayor and aldermen as city officials embark on their own parks improvement initiative without the county.
However, cancelled meetings between city and county leaders have left the consolidated recreation program in limbo.
“Right now, there’s so much uncertainty,” said Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission Chairman Jimmy Ware. “Someone has got to make a decision.”
He met with the Adams County Board of Supervisors today.
A joint meeting of city and county officials was called off today to discuss recreation, said Adams County board President Angela Hutchins. She said the city Board of Aldermen lacked a quorum to meet.
As Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson and city aldermen plan a $1.7 million upgrade of city parks, the consolidated city-county effort begun in 2015 to merge funds to improve recreation has fizzled. The Natchez-Adam County swimming pool and nearby soccer fields are all the city and county have to jointly maintain now.
Natchez and Adams County boards funded the construction of the swimming pool – which opened in 2018 – and jointly pay for its maintenance. Hutchins said city officials have indicated a desire to pull out of the pool deal. However, “I told them we’re not going to accept this pool on our own,” she said at today’s Board of Supervisors’ meeting.
Among the various unresolved questions is whether city and county officials want to continue their joint recreation commission. The nine-seat Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission – appointed by city aldermen and county supervisors – has struggled the past couple of years to function with vacant seats along with a lack of direction and financial accounting. Today’s cancelled joint meeting of city and county officials was to review a financial report of the recreation program.
“We should stop playing games,” said county Supervisor Ricky Gray, who’s been pushing for a joint meeting of the county and city boards to hammer out a new recreation agreement. “You’re either for it or not for it.”
After declaring “we should not keep holding the Recreation Commission up,” Gray got his fellow supervisors Monday to appoint their new members: Bubba Bruce and Derrick Battiste.
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Adams County supervisors expressed confidence today that federal funds are coming to repave and widen Morgantown Road after years of struggling to find money to improve the dangerous, flood-prone thoroughfare.
A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives with $2.4 million for this has a “real good chance of getting through to the president’s desk,” said Adams County Supervisor Kevin Wilson.
County supervisors and Natchez officials have been told that the Morgantown Road allocation is among 1,400 federal transportation projects throughout the country itemized in legislation working its way through the U.S. House and then to the Senate.
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After more than a year of being closed due to COVID, the old Adams County jail will reopen for public tours. The Board of Supervisors voted today to allow tourists inside the 1891 building, which is a state-designated Mississippi Landmark. While it was converted into the county administration building four decades ago, old jail cells and the trap door for hanging inmates remain intact. The historic site has been a popular attraction for visitors in past years.
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