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NATCHEZ, Miss. — The city board green-lighted plans Tuesday for heating the community’s new swimming pool and making other upgrades that were stalled last year.

Natchez aldermen’s 4-2 vote of approval Tuesday is contingent on the Adams County Board of Supervisors paying half of the costs. A state grant has been awarded to partially pay for the pool improvements, which last year were estimated to cost at least $345,000.

While the state Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks has committed to pay 50 percent of the costs, the rest of the expenses must be borne by the city and county boards. The Board of Aldermen last summer decided to postpone the work because of the city’s uncertain revenues during the COVID crisis.

The planned upgrades for the swimming pool include purchasing and installing a heater and insulation cover as well as constructing an expanded concrete deck, bleachers and lockers.

Proposals will be sought from contractors wanting to sell, install and build the upgrades. While the board has already budgeted money for the pool improvements, a vote was needed to move forward.

Aldermen voting Tuesday for the pool project: Valencia Hall, Billie Joe Frazier, Felicia Irving and Ben Davis. Voting against: Sarah Carter Smith and Dan Dillard.

Those wanting to pursue the pool improvements argued that enhancements make it more suitable for swimming meets and enable the pool to open sooner in spring and stay open longer until October with a heating system in place. Opponents questioned how the costly upgrades could be made when so many other city recreational facilities are in bad shape and need more money.

Mayor Dan Gibson noted city officials are developing a comprehensive plan for improving recreation that could be funded by Natchez borrowing money through a bond issue.

Once the swimming pool heater and insulation cover are installed, the energy costs are estimated to cost about $8,000 a month if the pool opened in April and closed in October. The current season is late May till early September.

The aquatic center at Liberty Park opened in June 2018, giving Natchez-Adams County its first public swimming pool since the one at Duncan Park closed in 2001. The city and county jointly funded the Liberty Park pool’s construction and share the costs of operating it.

NATCHEZ, Miss. — Terrence Bailey will serve as  interim Adams County tax collector to replace Rose Patterson, who died last week after serving just one year in office.

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday appointed Bailey and set a  Nov. 2 special election for Adams County voters to select who should serve the rest of the term that runs through 2023.

Patterson, 69, died Jan. 11 from COVID. Adams County voters elected her November 2019 as the county’s first black tax collector. Bailey, who also worked for previous tax collector Peter Burns and later the city of Natchez, rejoined the tax collector’s office when Patterson took over in January 2020.

Bailey’s appointment was an easy and obvious choice for supervisors, who noted he was the office’s second-in-command and involved in Patterson’s efforts the past year to improve tax- collecting operations.

However, in a contentious decision Tuesday, supervisors voted to reappoint former Natchez mayor Phillip West to the school board for another term. West has been on the Natchez-Adams School District Board of Trustees since 2016.

The county supervisors’ 3-2 vote had Angela Hutchins, Ricky Gray and Warren Gaines for West and Wes Middleton and Kevin Wilson against.

West has been the five-seat school board’s most outspoken member the past five years that’ve been inflamed by a dispute pitting the board versus Wilson and others against NASD building a new high school partly financed with a property tax increase.

Wilson on Tuesday tried to get supervisors to consider someone else – Cane Callon – to fill West’s seat, but Hutchins, Gray and Gaines stuck with West.

Middleton was also unsuccessful in an attempt to convince colleagues to put West’s reappointment on the November ballot for Adams County voters to decide in a nonbinding referendum.

The Adams County Board of Supervisors appoints two school trustees while the Natchez Board of Aldermen has three appointees. However, both boards in recent years have been trying to relinquish their appointment powers and let voters decide who the five school board members are. This change requires the Mississippi Legislature’s approval, but lawmakers have declined to do so.

West, 74, was Natchez mayor from 2004 to 2008, but was defeated for re-election in 2008 and lost again in 2012 and 2020 when he tried comebacks. He previously served in the state Legislature and on the Adams County Board of Supervisors.

NATCHEZ, Miss. — Adams County supervisors extended the local mask mandate through March to continue efforts for suppressing the spread of COVID as residents get lined up for vaccines being given to immunize them.

As Natchez-Adams County experiences the expected post-holiday swell of residents newly diagnosed to be infected, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday extended till March 31 the requirement for people to wear face coverings in public places where they gather. This local mandate has been in place since July.

The state Department of Health reported Adams County on Tuesday had 77 new cases of the virus and five deaths confirmed since a week ago. All total, the county has had 2,070 cases and 70 people die from the contagious respiratory disease since March, when the global pandemic became a public-health crisis in Mississippi.

The county board’s local mask-mandate extension comes after Gov. Tate Reeves last week removed Adams County from the state’s face-covering order. The governor on Friday said Adams County “has shown a stabilized rate of diagnosis of new COVID-19 cases.”

However, for the week ending July 9, Adams County reported its second-highest-ever weekly surge with 109 new COVID cases.

Of Mississippi’s 82 counties, Adams is one of only nine not under Reeves’ mask requirement. The governor’s COVID order also includes limits on crowd sizes.

While the nationwide inoculations are being phased in, it’ll be several months before the public can be safe from COVID-19. The current vaccine-eligibility phase in Mississippi covers people at least 65 years old and any adult with underlying health conditions that put them at risk of getting the coronavirus.

The free drive-through vaccinations in Natchez are being given by appointment at the Adams County Safe Room parking lot on Liberty Road. However, due to high demand, no appointments are available until after Feb. 2, according to the latest posting on the state Department of Health’s website, where the vaccination appointments are made. More information can be obtained at msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/14,0,420.html

Adams County supervisors noted they’ve gotten their vaccinations and that the overall inoculation process is processing well for those who’ve been able to get the shots. County board President Angela Hutchins said she was in line for only 10 minutes to get hers last week.

NATCHEZ. Miss. – There are three prospects seeking to be selected as the next Natchez tourism director. Mayor Dan Gibson said Tuesday someone could be appointed by the end of January.

City officials do not publicly disclose the names of people being considered for appointed municipal government jobs.

The Natchez Convention Promotion Commission will decide who’ll permanently replace Jennifer Ogden Combs, who resigned in September after serving four years as executive director of Visit Natchez, the city’s tourism and convention agency. Lynsey Smith has been serving as interim director.

The Board of Aldermen previously had the final say in selecting the tourism director with input from the commission, but state law actually gives the six-member NCPC ultimate authority on who to appoint, Gibson said.

The mayor noted the previous appointment process was governed by an now-expired agreement the board and commission had. Gibson said he learned last week that the agreement expired last June just before he became mayor.

While aldermen appoint the commission members, the NCPC controls how Natchez’ tourism-promotion funds are spent and who administers them. The commission currently has a vacant seat that aldermen are planning to fill. Applicants have until Jan. 22 to submit their resumes. The mayor and aldermen will then interview the prospects and decide who to appoint. As of Tuesday, four people had expressed interest in filling the commission’s empty seat, according to Gibson.

The NCPC and its Visit Natchez staff are the liaison between potential visitors to the area and the businesses that host them. The agency acts as a marketing organization, an information clearing house and as a promotional agency for the city and its attractions. It also oversees how the tourism taxes funding the NCPC’s activities are spent.

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Negotiations continue between Natchez officials and developers who plan to lease, renovate and reopen the Broadway Street railroad depot as a restaurant and entertainment venue, but they’re “almost ready to get the lease done,” the mayor said Tuesday. The contract could be ready for the board to approve by the end of January.

While the Board of Aldermen a year ago selected movie producers John Norris and Tate Taylor to lease and restore the city-owned building, plans have been stalled by COVID and other complications. Gibson said he’ll be meeting with Norris and others Friday to discuss the terms of the lease and “wrap this up” for aldermen to ratify at their next scheduled meeting Jan. 26.

While the city began renovating the 111-year-old train station in 2016, the Board of Aldermen held up plans for completing the vacant building’s restoration. The board in December 2019 selected Norris and Taylor to pursue their plans for the Broadway Street landmark.

Along with a restaurant, they envision an amphitheater along the bluff’s edge, a brick patio and public restrooms. The redevelopment will also incorporate the existing plaza on the street side of the depot. This has been drawn up with input from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Historic Natchez Foundation and the Natchez Preservation Commission. The commission is scheduled this evening to review the depot’s exterior alternation plans for its approval.

The passenger-train station was built around 1910 by the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad and later owned by Illinois Central Railroad. Passenger-rail service for Natchez ended in the 1940s after World War II. The building became a restaurant in the1970s.

The depot was vacated in 2013 when a restaurant and souvenir shop were evicted by the city so the building could be renovated.

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.