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City, county can get ball rolling together
Published Sunday, September 28, 2008
So the Natchez-Adams County Chamber of Commerce is poised to do an amazing feat — get the city and county together to discuss recreation.
That’s the kind of community, business-focused leadership that makes the chamber so important to have in the community.
Our community needs to consider a new recreation facility as a two-sided coin. On one side our community will get to enjoy the facilities.
But more important is the other benefit of having the facility — visitors. Having a facility that’s big enough to draw out of town tournaments — baseball, softball, tennis, soccer, etc. — will ultimately help pay for the facility.
Whatever we do needs to be jointly funded through the city and the county.
Despite an arbitrary border, Natchez-Adams County is one community.
As an older reader who lives in the city said to me this week, the county must realize the biggest core of the population — read: taxpayers and voters — lives in the city.
“It really burns me up. Their duties do extend into the city limits of Natchez (and) we all pay county taxes,” the gentleman said.
And that single statement has me convinced the city and county should work together on recreation.
Heck, figure out a split of the funding based on how much population lives in the city and how much lives in the county, but just figure it out and work together on it.
As soon as we stop acting like the city and county are two separate entities, the sooner our community will grow.
Statewide, economic developers will tell you, in private at least, that one of our community’s biggest hindrances to economic growth is our inability to get along and work together.
For evidence, consider the dueling prison projects from 2007. If you’ll remember the county was tied to one firm and was determined not to help the other firm, the larger, and more certain one.
If we’d played our cards right, perhaps we could have landed two prisons.
Some county leaders seem a bit smug to a number of city residents, like the caller.
A few supervisors seem to take the attitude that their duties stop after crossing into the city limits of Natchez.
That’s not true and the taxpayer funds should be spent on projects within the city and outside the city.
The county is poised to be flush with cash by a number of projects, including taxes from the prison some of the supervisors fought vehemently.
But consider the tax revenues the county should receive off just the Denbury Resources project to recover oil from the old Cranfield oil field. Company officials said months ago they hoped to recover 6,000 barrels a day from the facility.
If that’s possible, and if oil stays around $100 a barrel, Adams County’s share of the state oil severance tax is likely to be well above $1 million each year the facility is in operation.
So to put that in perspective, let’s say our community put $5 million in a recreation facility. On a 20-year note/bond, the payment would be well short of $400,000 annually. More than half of that could be paid for by simply reinstating the single mil tax “cut” of the county, and eliminating the spending the Natchez mayor graciously made to his own department — along with cutting out the city’s community development office.
Making a new recreation facility a reality is not difficult, we just need to work together and get moving.
It’s time to stop talking and play ball — together.
Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com
Comments
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 1:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Since the Natchez Chamber of Commerce is so hot for this complex, what part of that proposed five million are its members or the national organization planning to pump into it? The US Chamber can afford to spend millions lobbying in Mississippi, can it afford to spend millions actually building something other than taxpayer debt?
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 1:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Once again, where is the plan for this proposed recreation?
Kevin, I was waiting for you to say how the Mayor's savings should be spent. You didn't disappoint me. :)
Posted by kcooper (Kevin Cooper) on September 28, 2008 at 7:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
EnKiKur: I'd suggest that the local chamber is the single biggest organization of taxpayers out there and thus already contribute heavily to the tax base here. I believe the local chamber only shares a name with the U.S. Chamber. I don't think they're otherwise affiliated.
OldGrandDad: I'm glad I didn't disappoint you. You and EnKiKur never fail to disappoint me, either. :)
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 8:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
(insert little yellow big grin here)
Posted by gemccull (Gary McCullars) on September 28, 2008 at 9:51 a.m. (Suggest removal)
OldGrandDad, Kevin came close to stepping off in the ...!
However, he did not go far enough. Why should Natchez residents pay county taxes? Looks to me like Natchez residents are subsidizing county residents.
Let's figure out what part of the county taxes is really appicable to city residents.
Posted by gemccull (Gary McCullars) on September 28, 2008 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You know, if we get tax equity between the city and county, some folks might not be against annexation. Their taxes would probalby go down if included in the city. Just something to think about??
Posted by kcooper (Kevin Cooper) on September 28, 2008 at 12:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Interesting idea, Gary.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 12:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Kevin, then please explain to me why the Natchez-Adams County Chamber of Commerce is listed on the Mississippi Economic Council's website. If the Natchez Chamber doesn't wish to be affiliated with the US Chamber, which the Mississippi Economic Council is a member of you, as a member of the local board of directors, might wish to contact the Mississippi Economic Council and ask them to remove the local Chamber from their website.
I wonder additionally why the local business lobby uses the same name as the national and international lobby. I guess that is coincidence. Then too, there is that claim on the local Chamber's site that the local Chamber serves as "your spokesperson in local, state, and national affairs" that misleads one into believing the purely local Chamber has some connections at the state and national levels, as does the fact that the local Chamber participates in programs seen all the way up to the international level.
If what you say is so, that there is no affiliation, then all the non-accredited non-members of the US Chamber appear to be operating as some sort of disconnected sleeper cells.
I would suggest to you, Kevin, that there are more non-business owners locally than there are business owners even if the non-business owners are not organized, and that the non-business owners already contribute heavily to the local tax base as well- and are the customer base of the businesses in addition to that. I suggest too that the Chamber was heavily involved in saddling the people with one huge non-producing investment, the convention center, and now wants to do the same with a recreation complex. I suggest to you too that the Chamber could care less about what affects all the people, like good roads and good education, Anthony Morris being also on the board of the Chamber, than it does about protecting its own interests.
Your newspaper is pro-business and pro-tax increase and pro status quo even though the status quo locally has been both passively destructive and actively destructive in its lack of support for our former smokestack industries that provided so many good paying jobs for non-business owners. Your vision of an economy based on tourism, sports tournaments and recycling, while it may meet the financial dreams of local business owners, many local non-business owners say no thanks to the low paying and no benefit jobs offered in this vision and yes to food stamps and subsidized housing, the proliferation of poverty, and to the vibrant illegal drug economy.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 3:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Gary, Natchez residents pay county taxes because Natchez is part of the county. The county is not part of the city. Annexation would make taxes go up for the county residents, not down. Plus there would soon be county-wide zoning, the planning department would be making life miserable for county residents as well as city residents. County residents who currently care for no part of the activities of the city would be forced to support those activities.
Posted by kcooper (Kevin Cooper) on September 28, 2008 at 3:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Again, EnKiKur, no disappointment here.
You take three simple sentences of mine and spin them into a ludicrous, 400+ word tale that makes vast leaps of logic and connects random bits of information culled from Web sites into a conspiratorial belief of "what's really going on."
Since you know everything already, I'll refrain from further replies. Your intent seems less about exchanging ideas and more about twisting the truth and getting people agitated. I'd prefer not to play.
Posted by gemccull (Gary McCullars) on September 28, 2008 at 3:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
EnKiKur, I understand that Natchez is a part of Adams County
and I was not suggesting that all of Adams County be annexed.
However, it just seems to me that some of the taxes collected by the county from Natchez citizens should be the responsibility of those living outside the city limits.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 3:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ah, quite the rebuttal Kevin, considering I culled the information from the websites paid for by the various Chambers, who all support such things as school to work education and public/private partnerships. The first schools for anticipated jobs and not academic excellence, and the second aims for the public to assume risk in business ventures while the private part assumes the profits, exactly what we see in such enterprises as the convention center and the current salvation of bankers going on in Congress; that fact that this is a progressive movement toward socialism doesn't seem to register on the award winning best community newspaper in Mississippi and doesn't exactly reflect what most people think of as small town apple pie values, at least not when it is called what it is.
If your organizations don't believe in the information they publish on their websites they should quit putting it there. And it is your newspaper that has presented this recreation complex as "for the children" and as a great economic boon which will benefit Natchez business; forgive the ludicrous leap of logic in my earlier assumptions that the Chamber was involved and that you would allow your dual capacity as editor and Chamber board member to intermingle in advocacy for what the Chamber wants.
Is it agitating to point out that the taxes businesses pay are collected from the customers who patronize their businesses? That there exists at least a symbiotic relationship between the two and that the interests of the customers are at least as important as the interests of the businesses? Is it wrong to point out that the more debt the public takes on the more taxes will rise? Is it also conspiratorial to do that?
Posted by lookingout (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 4:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Tell him enkikur.....Guess he is lost for words....lol...
Posted by Riz (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 6:37 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The Chamber of Commerce has never done anything around here witin the last 5 years. Lets work on comsolidation and Economic Development trhough the EDA!
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 7:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh my gosh. Not another...!!! Consolidation is another one of those planless ideas.
Not to be ragging on you Riz, but this, along with recreation and other issues, is regulary thrown out to the public and nothing is ever done because there are no plans for them. These are only broad ideas that politicians use to sway the masses. They sound like good topics that everyone should be for. So they are used again and again and again. And I only wish that the Democrat would take a lead and call the politicians out on it whenever they mention this stuff. Put them on the spot and ask for their plans. I thought journalists ENJOY making politicians squirm. What's the world coming to?
Posted by jack (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 8:39 p.m. (Suggest removal)
we already have a recreation committee that should get the supervisors and aldermen together, not the chamber. the chamber should not be just another one to meet with. time to quit meeting and start building.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 9 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Enk and OGD...I'm with you on this one...Enk, you do tend to take things a little too far, but you're general observations are right on as are your's OGD.
The Natchez Chamber of Commerce is an appendage of it's membership and does not what is necessarily good for Natchez and the taxpayer, but what is good for their membership. I would, however, note that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce seems to only be loosely affiliated with local chambers and is in reality a pro-business lobbying arm hired by the aggregate local chambers.
OGD, the red herring of consolidation has turned up time and time again, but almost no politicians will tell you that it is a practical impossibility without an amendment to the Mississippi Constitution. That is almost impossible for Natchez to pull off when it would have to be put to a vote to ALL of the voters of Mississippi. The Mississippi constitution requires ALL counties to have a BOS and a SO. It also requires incorporated communities to have a Mayor and BOA.
No other community in Mississippi has been successful in altering this fact. The only way without an amendment would be for the City of Natchez to voluntarily unincorporate, which would also take legislative action. If it was successful, governance would revert to the county.
In my understanding, true consolidation is virtually impossible. It has become a "safe" carrot for politicians to hold out to the voters with no pressure on them to actually perform the miracles required to make it happen. No city politician is going to commit political suicide and vote his job out of existence by voting to un-incorporate or to have a constitutional amendment.
There are places where the City and County could and should cooperate, recreation is probably one, but the consolidation issue is simply a political lie.
This is my opinion, I'm not a lawyer, just a lowly architect, and I would love to be proven wrong, but that's what I see.
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
sammohon, I figure these same old issues will be thrown about in the next election. And the next. But I tend to feel that the Democrat could squash this stuff if they used just a little directness.
By the way, if a "recreation complex" was built that would actually bring in out-of-towners to spend money I'd be all for it. I'm not really keen on government funded recreation but I understand how out-of-town money circulates through a community.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 9:50 p.m. (Suggest removal)
OGD...I would offer my services to the BOA and BOS to come up with a plan and logical location for the recreational complex, but the last time I did that kind of research for the Natchez Convention Center in 1992 it was futile.
I conducted a study (no expensive outside consultants, because they don't know Natchez), had meetings with everyone I could think of, consulted interested groups from politicians to hospitality, restaurant, hotel, community groups. I consulted the Chamber. I conducted meetings open to the public. I had property acquisition appraisals done...and through a process of elimination, came up with a logical, economically reponsible plan that was affordable at the time and used properties already existing and removed non-productive properties from the City tax rolls and put them to work.
The result? The study was ignored. I was out $25,000.00 (the debt was reneged on by the NCVB at the order of the then mayor) and the Natchez Convention Center was built eleven years later for the same amount I had predicted, but with far less bang for the buck, less space, no parking and in the wrong place (according to the taxpayers that I studied) and for far more money (due to the necessity of a much more expensive bond issue we're still paying for) and with all the non-productive properties still non-productive....why?...all for a certain mayor's ego.
I don't want that fiasco repeated! Yet I'd be willing to go through that hell again if I were reasonably certain that common sense would prevail and we could get some good from it...do you think that possible?
Posted by OldGrandDad (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 10:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sam, it might be possible with a little help. For example, the Democrat could interview the Mayor with questions like "You ran for office saying you wanted a recreation complex. By now, could you please share your plans for this complex with us"? If no plans are given the next day the bold headlines read "Broken Promises", which sounds much better than "Mayor Lies". This is normal newspaper stuff and I'd love to see the Democrat step to the front on issues like this and help keep political feet to the fire. And then maybe we could retire some of these perpetual planless ideas the politicians seem to ride on.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on September 28, 2008 at 11:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We'll have to see if that kind of help is possible...we already know that there was no plan...I rather doubt it will be forthcoming from the ND...it hasn't heretofore.
Posted by redusmfan (anonymous) on September 29, 2008 at 8:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
No plan for recreation as well as no real plan for spending the last new tax($2 a night hotel room) they got passed in the legislature.
I graduated from South Natchez back in the early 80's . ONLY 6 OF MY FELLOW GRADUATES are still in the Natchez area. The rest have left to make a living for their families, just as I have. One that I was talking to recently said she had not been back to Natchez in 10 years because it depressed her . I told her how much I understood her sentiment. She has children close to the same age as ours and she says that after you see a few houses, there is not anything for the kids to do, other than tell us, the parents, how bored they are.
A real recreational complex, like the ones in Laurel and Hattiesburg, draw families in to visit after they play the games. It helps families connected with the kids easier. I know that many will say that there is plenty to do in Natchez, but the last time I drove through Duncan Park, I reached in the console and made sure my protection was ready if needed. A bunch of thugs hanging around with do-rags on their heads talking crap....just what every young family wants to see...NOT!!!!!!
Build it and they will come holds true for recreation complexes. Just look at the one in Flowood, Winners Circle. Families from all areas of Jackson go there with the kids to enjoy weekends and evenings. They have a nice one in the Southhaven area also. I went through it the last time we went to the Memphis Zoo.
Also, Natchez, put some cops at the recreational areas. keep the thugs and future thugs at bay, please...then people may come back for a weekend and stay for a lifetime.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on September 29, 2008 at 1:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
More than just a site plan is needed, a business plan is needed too if anyone cares to give the taxpayers a hint at what they are getting into. For a five million dollar complex to pay for itself over twenty years it will have to bring in thirty thousand a month, at least, and that is not counting maintenance, promotion, salaries and pensions for the cousins, friends and nephews running the place, etc.
Posted by rburke1 (anonymous) on September 29, 2008 at 3:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Kevin, You said it well and you did so objectively. Thanks for a well considered opinion and keep repeating it.
Posted by andy (anonymous) on September 29, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)
natchez cannot give anything to the residents of the county, they still have not done anything for oakland and how many years as that been when the city said they would give them water . natchez cannot serve the city with police now, so how can they serve the county. all natchez wants is some tax money. look down south at the golf course area they are not planning on taking it what does the city have to offer any resident of adams county. maybe it needs to be the other way around. looks like the county has the money and the city wants it.
Posted by freedom42 (anonymous) on September 29, 2008 at 10:19 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Kevin, why don't you just give Enkikur and Sam their own columns in the paper? It would increase circulation because not everyone has a computer to read the discussions they have on here.
Posted by gemccull (Gary McCullars) on September 30, 2008 at 12:34 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Enkikur, has or had a site at http://www.churchhillrepublican.com . He/She should open it back up to publish their commentary. JMO
As for Sam, it is up to him and the ND.
Posted by freedom42 (anonymous) on September 30, 2008 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't think it's there any more Gary. Maybe he has a wider audiance through the paper? I enjoy the comments by just about everyone, makes me think!
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on September 30, 2008 at 7:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
freedom42 and gemcull...I appreciate your comments...for a while there I was afraid they were tongue in cheek...I hope I'm not TOO long winded...I try to say what I mean, mean what I say and to do so succinctly, concisely and without a lot of silly cutting and pasting which tends to bore everybody...after all most of us know how to Google too.
I doubt the ND would want me as a columnist...I'm just to darn honest and blunt...besides we rarely see eye to eye...they're just too darn liberal for my taste. Besides...I tick off enough people here, what would happen if I were actually in print?...I shudder to think about it...LOL.
Also there are some pretty good bloggers here other than EnK and myself...Idefinitelymight, Yeahuhuh, Teach4peace, redusmfan, both of your and others come to mind...all don't hold the same views I do, but I respect appreciate the intellects and opinions and they contribute to the conversation in rational, logical ways...they make it fun to exchange ideas...and that's why I'm here.
Posted by freedom42 (anonymous) on September 30, 2008 at 8:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't think any of us hold ALL the same views and opinions as anyone else. On some articles I find myself agreeing with someone who I oppose on another page. After I finished raising the kids I went back to college. That got my brain rejuvanated and the Democrat blogs keep me informed and questioning on issues I might never have questioned before. All of you keep writing, even though we don't all agree it is an interesting way to spend some time.
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