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NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors decided Monday to draft an ordinance requiring apartment complexes to beef up security measures following Sunday’s shooting sprees in these high-crime areas.

Sheriff Travis Patten said such steps are needed “to get these criminal elements out of these apartments.”

“I don’t have all the answers, . . . but solutions need to be put in place,” Patten told supervisors.

The sheriff reported one person was killed and two wounded in Sunday’s separate shootings. Jlandrick Davis, 25, was killed at Susie B. West apartments. Two people were shot at or near the Maryland Heights and Cambridge Heights apartments. Patten noted the Holiday apartment complex has also been a problem area.

Potential crime-curbing steps discussed at Monday’s board meeting include imposing a nighttime curfew, reactivating Natchez-Adams County’s crime crackdown task force and requiring apartment owners to install crime cameras and hire off-duty cops to patrol the premises.

Patten said he wants to bring back “Operation Safe Neighborhoods,” the joint crime-fighting initiative the city and county conducted last year with Natchez police officers and Adams County sheriff’s deputies engaged in “saturation” patrols throughout the city and county to curb and investigate crimes and make arrests.

County Supervisor Ricky Gray said setting up surveillance cameras to record criminal activities is a key to deterring crime and catching culprits.  He got the county board Monday to instruct its attorney to draft an ordinance requiring apartments complexes outside the city to install crime cameras. The proposed local law’s details will be presented later for the board to review before approval.

“They are a problem,” Gray said of the crime-ridden residential areas. “Everybody in this county should be upset.”

Adams County board President Kevin Wilson said apartment owners should post security guards on the premises. “That seems to be the first step – to have off-duty police officers to patrol,” Wilson said.

In addition to drafting the anticrime ordinance to impose on apartments, the county board agreed to move the voting precinct from the Maryland Heights apartments. Supervisor Angela Hutchins said voters are afraid to cast their ballots there because of the crime. Supervisors agreed to transfer the precinct to a nearby church.

Aldermen approved an arrangement to move the city-run workforce training classes from Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s Natchez campus to the adjacent Alcorn State University facility. Co-Lin has run out of space for training electrical, plumbing and carpentry students, said Tuwanna Williams, the city’s workforce development director.

She noted there’s ample space at the ASU building that houses the university’s business and nursing schools. 

City aldermen took no action Tuesday on Homochitto Street residents’ complaints about licensing a vacation rental house they say is disrupting the neighborhood. The president of the Natchez Bed and Breakfast Association asked aldermen to veto a “ridiculous decision” made in August by city planners to permit the short-term rental house, but they opted Tuesday to do nothing after hearing her appeal.

Jackie Wild’s appeal will be continued to November for the Board of Aldermen to further consider.

The Natchez Planning Commission in August approved David Williamson’s application to operate his guest house known as “Petite Retreat” at 37 Homochitto Street. Speaking Tuesday to aldermen, Williamson and wife Melissa submitted documentation showing they’re following all city regulations for operating Petite Retreat and paying the required taxes. Any complaints by Wild and others are merely “hearsay,” Williamson said.

Wild — who lives two houses from the Williamsons’ place and operates her “Magnolia Cottage” bed-and-breakfast inn there — recited incidents of Petite Retreat guests being too loud late at night and disturbing the neighborhood.

After hearing her appeal Tuesday, the board opted not to vote on Alderman Valencia Hall’s proposal to affirm the Planning Commission’s decision to let Petit Retreat continue operating, and no alderman motioned to veto the commission’s decision.

While aldermen didn’t take any action, Wild’s appeal can be brought back to the board when it meets in November.

Plans call for the street to be closed April 4 for two to four weeks as scaffolds are set up, said church representative Nathan Stubbs, who met Tuesday with Natchez aldermen seeking permission to close the street between State and Main.

He said the scaffolding will be more complex and larger than what’s currently placed on the basilica’s Main Street side, where work has already begun for refurbishing the Catholic edifice built in 1843.

Most of Natchez-Adams County’s 18 tornado sirens have been repaired after months of being out of order, but seven remain silent after technicians discovered they need more new parts, said Emergency Management Director Brad Bradford.

Meeting Monday with the Adams County Board of Supervisors, Bradford said four of the defective sirens are in the city and three out in the county. Bradford said he’ll ask city officials again to help fund the new parts needed for those in the city.

However, Natchez aldermen turned down a previous request for money. All 18 towered sirens for several months couldn’t be automatically switched on remotely because of a defective radio system. Each would need to be climbed and manually sounded off if a tornado was approaching.

While 11 of the sirens could be fixed in recent weeks, the seven remaining alarms need more upgraded parts, Bradford said. Among other matters at Monday’s county board meeting, supervisors discussed the low pay provided to E-911 operators. “I want my people treated fairly, … or they’re going to go some place else,” said Adams County E-911 Director Annette Fells.

While supervisors acknowledged the need to raise their salaries, any increases must wait until next year, said board President Kevin Wilson. He expressed hope more revenues will be generated by the Mississippi Legislature levying a new tax on cell phone bills.

There’s a $1-a-month tax on landline phone bills to help fund the county’s emergency 911 operations, but that’s not the case for cell phones. Such taxes are enacted by the state Legislature. Wilson noted the declining use of landline phones has resulted in fewer dollars to fund local emergency-dispatching operations.

A prison construction company estimates it could build an Adams County jail for about $40 million to detain about 116 inmates.

The construction plans presented to county supervisors Monday comes as the county’s substandard 50-year-old jail is being further strained by having to hold more inmates, said Sheriff Travis Patten. Patten said recent legal directives from the state attorney general’s office has prompted the need to jail more inmates as they go through court proceedings.

They have to be incarcerated sooner and longer when arrested, the sheriff said. The Adams County jail building on State Street is deteriorating and can’t be sustained much longer. Many detainees arrested in Natchez-Adams County are taken to the Concordia Parish detention center instead of holding them in the county jail.

However, Patten noted the influx prompted by the AG’s legal directive related to grand juries and indictments has resulted in Adams County having to hold more inmates. The jail had on average about 30 inmates a day, but that’s increased to 50 to 70, he said.

While Natchez and Adams County continues to pay Concordia Parish to take a number of inmates, Patten noted the neighboring prison will not accept those with mental or drug problems. The jail construction plans presented Monday came from executives of ModCorr, the Texas-based company that’s been working in recent months developing a proposal for the Adams County Board of Supervisors.

The board continues to be uncertain how to fund a new jail, but ModCorr President Buddy Johns said he’ll develop more architectural and operational plans. Johns noted a major question remains unanswered: where will the new jail be located.

A site in north Adams County is being considered along with land where the now-closed IP paper mill was in south Natchez. Both properties are owned by the county. The land north of town was donated to the county; the IP site is for industrial development.

Patten said both sites are viable prospects for a new jail, but he noted the old IP property would be easier to prepare with utilities and other accommodations already in place. Johns said a major factor to consider is how well the soil can hold the 42,000-square-feet facility his company is planning for.

“We could have some soft-soil conditions to deal with,” he said. ModCorr specializes in fabricating modular cell units to house inmates. The $35 million to $40 million costs he cited for an Adams County jail is an “educated guess” that could differ from the actual costs.

Johns noted jail construction expenses nationally have increased in recent years as “justice reforms” have been enacted to improve housing for inmates. A 2014 plan prepared for Adams County supervisors by Benchmark Construction Corp. of Jackson had a new 185-inmate detention center costing about $7 million to build.

Aldermen have approved a new travel policy for city employees in an effort to restrain expenses.

“We’re not here to go on vacations on the city’s dime,” Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said Tuesday as he proposed the policy for the Board of Aldermen.

City employees will be required to submit their travel requests in writing with justifications for the trip and estimated expenses. “We just need to be more careful … (and) make sure we have more documentation,” Gibson said.

Aldermen ratified the mayor’s travel policy in a 4-2 vote. Valencia Hall, Sarah Carter Smith, Ben Davis and Curtis Moroney approved it; Billie Joe Frazier and Felicia Bridgewater Irving voted against it.

The board on Tuesday approved Natchez Senior Citizens Multipurpose Center Director Carla Monroe’s request to travel to Chicago next week to attend a conference. She said the National Adult Day Care Association’s meeting will provide information on how to cope with budget cuts being imposed by the federal government since President Trump took office.

Monroe said “major cuts are coming down” from Washington and “we could feel the pressure from it…. There are so many changes coming down. They’re coming down constantly.”

Smith was the lone dissenting vote against Monroe’s out-of-state trip. She and Gibson said to try relying more on in-state conferences for such informational meetings.

NATCHEZ, Miss. – Contractors will be sought in the coming weeks for demolishing the downtown Fry building so city officials in December can review the proposed costs as efforts continue for making its space a parking lot.

This is part of developers’ plans for the adjacent Eola hotel being renovated and reopened in 2027.

Meeting Tuesday with Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson and city aldermen, Community Development Director James Johnston said published notices will be posted for contractors to submit their demolition proposals later this month and next month prior to bids being opened in December for review.

The city-owned Fry building, which has been ridden with asbestos, is being razed with the help of more than $1 million in state and federal cleanup funds for transforming the site into a parking lot.

Plans call for demolition of the 1950s-era Fry to begin by next March — paving the way for refurbishing the now-closed Eola to become a Marriott-affiliated hotel.

The Eola has been vacant since 2014 as developers struggled to finance its renovations, which have been projected to cost more than $30 million. However, they and Gibson express confidence the hotel will be back in business in 2027 to mark the 100^th year of the hotel’s construction.

“Things take time, but this is a fantastic achievement,” Gibson said Tuesday. “We have not given up.”

The mayor said he’s talking with more businesses also hankering to locate in Natchez that he can’t divulge until deals are done. “We’re sitting on several things right now we cannot announce,” he said.