This is to address The Democrat’s article on Thursday. The former commissioners of the Natchez Convention Promotion Commission want the public to know that some time around the end of February 2016, before the commissioners resigned on April 4, 2016, the original minute book was delivered to Murray Printing for binding and that additional original documents such as resolutions that have since come into the possession of the commissioners have also been delivered to Murray Printing to add to the book for the period Sept. 10, 2014, through March 18, 2016.

A certified copy of the minute book was delivered to the Chancery Clerk’s Office for recording on April 4, 2016, before the commissioners were ever told to resign.

Around March 9, 2016, commissioners borrowed the master binder of meeting materials dating back to 2014, the only records the commissioners were able to recover after reports that commission records had been disposed of, and the process of scanning and supplementing the binder to protect the written institutional knowledge of the commission began.

The binder has been available for pick-up for about three weeks and was finally picked up by staff on April 20, 2016. Any meeting materials in the personal possession of any commissioner would be the same records anyone in the public could receive at any meeting of the commission.

The former commissioners have a receipt showing that the recorder, which the secretary-treasurer uses to prepare the minutes, was returned to the commission on April 8, 2016, four days after the commissioners resigned.

All of this was well-known. The former commissioners cannot think of anything else that the commission and the city could possibly need from the former commissioners at this point, but if anything is needed, the commission and the city should ask the staff and pick up the phone and call a former commissioner.

Thank you.

 

David Gammill is the former chairman Natchez Convention Promotion Commission.