The joint fire services agreement between the City of Natchez and Adams County is not dead yet, but the vultures are circling.

With a few years remaining on the always-contentious agreement, the county appears to be working on its own plan to position itself to operate without the city’s help.

County supervisors this week discussed scenarios for where the county might locate new county fire stations in order to improve fire ratings and lower insurance costs for residents in unincorporated parts of the county.

If the county moves forward with this, the City of Natchez will have to drastically scale back its own fire department or pump hundreds of thousands of dollars more into the department to make up for the lost funds the county appears positioning to pull.

Such a move underscores why our community needs a single form of government, not two.

If the county pulls from the fire agreement, city residents will effectively be paying for two sets of fire stations.

Our county’s tax dollars must be protected better and spent more wisely.

Despite a city limits line on a map and the political divides that only those who earn a living from their government jobs care about, Natchez and Adams County are one community.

Let’s not divide ourselves again and duplicate even more services, but instead work together to make our community leaner, meaner and with a better quality of life. If we need to improve the county’s fire ratings, how can the city and county work together to accomplish this with the least amount of spending, waste and duplication possible? Let’s shoo away the vultures and revive the discussion of working together.