NATCHEZ — The City of Natchez filed a lawsuit last week against the Cock of the Walk to collect $17,000 the restaurant’s owners reportedly owe the City of Natchez.

City Attorney Hyde Carby said Tuesday after the Natchez Board of Aldermen meeting that the restaurant owes $17,000 in back rent to the city.

Cock of the Walk, which is now closed, occupied the former railroad depot building on Broadway Street.

The restaurant’s rent was $1,000 per month, according to its lease agreement.

The owners were forced to vacate the building last fall after the city decided to renovate the depot and develop it into office and meeting space and a product development facility.

Instead of opening Cock of the Walk in another location, owner Patricia Clark and her family opened Big E’s Steakhouse on D’Evereux Drive.

Efforts to reach Patricia Clark, former owner of Cock of the Walk, Tuesday were unsuccessful.

The lawsuit was filed in Adams County Circuit Court.

In other news from Tuesday’s aldermen meeting:

4Tension between Ward 6 Alderman Dan Dillard and city senior staff accountant Angela Penfield overshadowed a discussion about city finances after Dillard quizzed Penfield about what he said is missing information in the board’s budget reports.

Dillard said the Magnolia Bluffs Casino annual lease fund account should have approximately $1.4 million in it. Dillard expressed concern that the report did not include the beginning balance.

Penfield said that particular report did not have the beginning balance, but the balance was included in another report that showed cash in the account.

Dillard asked Penfield about a $333,000 expenditure from the account, and Penfield said she did not know for what the expenditure was used.

City Clerk Donnie Holloway also could not clarify the expense.

Penfield was visibly frustrated at Dillard and said she had already answered questions about the account last month.

“I already went over that in the document I gave you last month,” she said. “I’m not going over this again.”

Penfield requested all of Dillard’s questions be in writing.

“I put them in writing, but you passed them off,” Dillard said to Penfield.

Penfield asked Dillard how she passed the questions off, but Mayor Brown knocked his gavel on his desk and stopped the conversation.

Penfield remained visibly frustrated and said, “This is why I didn’t want to come (to the meeting.)”

Brown said Penfield and Dillard would not be allowed to argue in the meeting.

“We’re just not going to argue in this forum,” Brown said. “If you have a problem, you can meet and discuss it.”

Dillard has repeatedly quizzed Holloway at aldermen meetings about what Dillard contends are mistakes in budget reporting and has asked the city accountants periodically attend meetings to provide financial updates.

Tuesday was the first meeting an accountant attended.