Newspapers depend on people telling the truth. It&8217;s a newspaper&8217;s lifeblood. A newspaper is only as good as the integrity and honesty of its sources.

Last week this newspaper almost printed a non-truth because someone, presumably attempting to by funny, misled a reporter.

Lots of folks bring stories to the newspaper that wind up not being stories. Usually these include family spats and lots of &8220;he said, she said&8221; kinds of accusations.

Usually in those cases, the people crying foul are hoping that a public story in the newspaper would be the fatal public relations blow to show the world that they are correct in the dispute.

In the case last week the &8220;someone&8221; pulling the newspaper&8217;s chain was Natchez City Planner Andrew Smith.

On Thursday evening, Smith walked up to someone from our newsroom at a public event and said that he was resigning.

When asked for details, Smith said he&8217;d turned in his resignation to Mayor Phillip West at 4:30 p.m. that day.

The newsroom employee thought it sounded suspicious because he knew that Mayor West had stopped by the newspaper office and was at the newspaper at 4:30 p.m.

But, at that point, we had no reason to believe that Smith wasn&8217;t being truthful, other than the ludicrous nature in which he &8220;announced&8221; his resignation.

Giving Smith the benefit of the doubt, our newsroom started pursuing the story.

Mayor West hadn&8217;t heard anything about it.

Other community members and leaders, who apparently overheard Smith&8217;s comments Thursday night, asked people at the newspaper what they knew about the situation.

Finally, Smith called and said he was joking.

His sense of humor is lost on me.

Chalk it up to just a bad joke that was misunderstood. But doing that would be missing the pattern of problems that seem to trail behind wherever Smith goes.

First off, he and I have never met &8212; at least I don&8217;t recall meeting him. So this isn&8217;t a personality conflict between the two of us; I&8217;m sure he&8217;s a nice person. The issues truly come to a head when we look at performance and efficiency.

From the news stories about problems in planning to the word on the street, obviously Smith has been surrounded by controversy since the beginning of his tenure.

Lots of finger pointing has gone on between Smith&8217;s department and other city agencies, most notably the engineering department, which by nature works hand-in-hand with planning.

Lots of people have lots of opinions about the &8220;why&8221; that connects all of the problems together.

I&8217;ve heard everything from racism &8212; Smith is black and the engineering department&8217;s head is white &8212; to personality conflicts.

On the racism thing, if memory serves me correctly, the engineering department has worked well with previous city planners both black and white. So that seems like a non-issue.

When one considers the personality conflicts, perhaps that gets more to the root of the problem.

Not everyone has to get along; constructive conflict can be a good, productive thing for a team of people &8212; even a team of public workers. But name calling and blaming isn&8217;t constructive. And again, the main personality that has changed is Smith&8217;s.

Planning commission meeting minutes have become so unintelligible under Smith&8217;s watch that the commission has tabled approval of the official minutes until massive corrections can be made.

Given Smith&8217;s public track record, he&8217;ll likely blame the clerk who is handling the minutes, which would be inappropriate. He&8217;s responsible for hiring and training. How much public time, time paid by the citizens of Natchez, has been wasted trying to resolve or &8220;fix&8221; problems created by friction in or around the city&8217;s planning department?

Something needs to change at city hall and that something is getting the right person in the city planner&8217;s office. That person should be bringing more to the table than he or she takes away.

Kevin Cooper

is associate publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or

kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com

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