We were more than pleased to see so many people involved last Friday in a cleanup effort downtown &045; with volunteers from the community, workers from Isle of Capri and City of Natchez Public Works employees, the event drew a crowd to help spruce up downtown.

Their involvement at the event &045; which was sponsored by the Natchez Downtown Development Association &045; shows how important folks think it is to have a clean downtown.

We applaud their effort, but we wish that volunteer work

wasn’t the only effort we were praising.

While the volunteerism is valuable, we still believe the core work of maintaining a clean downtown area belongs to the city.

It was good to see crews from public works on the scene Friday, but cleaning up downtown &045; which means everything from picking up litter to fixing broken sidewalks to cleaning up eyesore buildings &045; deserves more.

We don’t want in any way to diminish our appreciation for the volunteers, but we think they need more help on a daily and weekly basis from the city.

Someone in our city government needs to adopt the issue of curb appeal and make it a top priority by creating an action plan and following through with it. This issue isn’t just about making sure our city looks pretty, it’s about attracting businesses and visitors &045; and keeping them.