NATCHEZ — The Natchez Planning Commission voted Thursday to again postpone action on proposed changes to the city’s billboard ordinance.

Natchez City Planner Riccardo Giani said Thursday the draft text amendment to the city’s billboard regulations has been completed, but is awaiting review from legal counsel.

The City of Natchez is currently reviewing the recent appointment of City Attorney Everett Sanders, which was called into question by the majority of the Natchez Board of Aldermen at its last meeting.

Commission chairwoman Cheryl Rinehart suggested at the meeting the commission table it.

“I know the city has not retained legal counsel, and I don’t think we have legal counsel (to address) this,” she said.

The commission previously postponed action on the billboard regulations until after the city’s recent election and a new administration took office.

The proposed changes to the billboard regulations include doubling the required distance between signs, reducing the maximum allowable size of a billboard, adding language that specifically outlaws double-decker boards and enforcing site-specific placement regulations.

The text amendment came at the request of the board of aldermen, which placed a moratorium on all new billboard applications in April and asked Giani to prepare a recommendation based on what similar cities in the state have done to regulate large outdoor signs.

A billboard went up after the moratorium at Carquest Auto Parts store on John R. Junkin Drive, but Giani said the company received approval for the billboard prior to the aldermen imposing the moratorium.

Aldermen first moved to forbid billboards in the city’s scenic corridors in 1994, and gave outdoor advertising companies 10 years to collect revenue from the signs before removing them.

Twelve years past that deadline, those billboards are still standing.

“Really, this should have been done in 2004,” Giani said. “We’re kind of catching everything on the back end.”