NATCHEZ — The city’s donation of the Natchez Visitor Center to the National Park Service must get state legislative approval before it can be finalized, City Attorney Bob Latham told the Natchez Mayor and Board of Aldermen during Tuesday’s meeting.

Latham said the transfer needs a specific statutory authority for the City of Natchez to make the donation to National Park Service.

“The Legislature can pass what’s called a local (and) private legislation, to authorize the city to (donate the visitor center),” Latham said. “This process was recommended for us.”

Superintendent of the Natchez National Historical Park Kathleen Bond said she was surprised by the news.

“We have Congressional legislation that says it can happen,” Bond said. “(The Natchez Board of Aldermen) has voted that they plan for it to happen. The fact that now we need to go to the state to vote on it for it to happen is news to me.”

Bond said she originally thought the transfer of the Natchez Visitor Center to the National Park Service would conclude by Christmas this year. After Tuesday’s meeting, however, she said the process likely would not come to an end until next spring.

Bond said under the current arrangement, the city owns the visitor center and the National Park Service is a partner. Bond said NPS has administrative offices in the visitor center and a book store, and the National Park Service pays 52-percent of the operating costs, which is based on the amount of square-footage the service occupies.

In Natchez’s 48 percent of the operating costs, Bond said the city leases spaces for the state welcome center, the Convention Promotion Commission and the Natchez Pilgrimage Tours. Once the National Park Service officially acquires the center, Bond said, hopefully, the service and the city can agree on a short-term lease in the beginning.

“When (the National Park Service) takes ownership,” Bond said, “then it will be federal law policy. What you can do inside a National Park is completely different than what you can do in a city building. We will have to figure out everything. This (a short-term lease) would just buy us time.”

Although Bond pitched the idea of the short-term lease agreement, she said everything would still need to be negotiated.

In other business at Tuesday’s Natchez Board of Aldermen meeting:

* The board heard a proposal from Mount Sinai Baptist Church to build a handicap accessible ramp to the front entrance and a portion of it would be built on city property. Currently, the church’s ramp does not meet ADA requirements. Grennell said the board needs to turn this proposal over to the city attorney to figure out whether the city can “donate” the property to the church, since the church maintains the property currently.

* Heard an update from the city’s tourism agency, Visit Natchez. Executive Director Jennifer Ogden-Combs said tourism taxes are trending higher. She said that given where the taxes are right now, they potentially could be the highest amount of tourism tax Natchez has received since 2006.

* Heard Mayor Darryl Grennell request that citizens donate box fans for a drive he is doing for residents without air conditioning. Grennell said people could drop off box fans at city hall during operating hours.