VIDALIA — As far as anyone currently associated with Concordia Parish government knows, the sale of a parcel of land at Black Lake will be the first time the police jury has ever sold land.

&uot;I’ve been here 26 years, and as far as I know, there have been no other sales,&uot; said Robbie Shirley, who serves as secretary-treasurer for the Concordia Parish Police Jury.

But on Monday, the police jury voted 5-4 to advertise for the sale of land it has owned at Black Lake, in the Monterey area, since the 1800s.

Money from the sale of the land will be used to shore up the jury’s ailing general fund, which pays for such things as courthouse maintenance and salaries and benefits for parish employees.

Jury Finance Chairman Randy Temple could not be reached for comment Saturday. But he has said the jury’s general fund is not faring well despite fair sales tax collections and a modest increase in severance taxes.

&uot;You may be looking at, in the last quarter (of 2000), being out of money, and we don’t have anywhere to borrow from,&uot; Temple said in a recent police jury meeting.

Jury President Charlie Blaney, who voted against the sale, said it would be smarter to lease the land so the jury could reap income from it for years to come.

Some of that income could come from timber sales. In June 1999, the jury sold more than $80,000 worth of timber from the Black Lake land to KCS Lumber Co. of Natchez.

Temple and fellow jurors Rodney Smith and Melvin Ferrington also voted against selling the land. Jurors Tommy &uot;Red&uot; Tiffee, Gene Allen, Carey Cook, Cathy Darden and Willie Dunbar voted for the sale, but none could be reached for comment Saturday.

Just getting to the point where the land could be sold took several years.

In May 1997, King’s Farm Inc. sued the police jury over ownership of the land and won the suit in Seventh Judicial District Court. But that decision was reversed in March 1998 by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Still, one question remains about the land itself. Jury records show the parcel contains a little more than 400 acres of land. More than 100 acres of that is covered by water.

&uot;That is part of the land’s appeal, though,&uot; Blaney said. &uot;It’s excellent for duck hunting as well as squirrel and deer hunting.&uot;

But tax assessor’s records show the parcel contains just 287 acres.

Jurors must also decide whether they will attempt to try to gain a right-of-way to the property before the sale or leave such legalities to the land’s new owner.

In addition, the jury will need to advertise for bids for three consecutive weeks. The first of those advertisements will probably not be ready to run until Sept. 27, Shirley said.

No one is exactly sure how much land the police jury owns. The parcels, which include courthouse property and maintenance barns, are too numerous to look up in the Concordia Parish Clerk of Court’s database.

And no records of which specific parcels the jury owns were kept by the Tax Assessor’s Office until about 20 years ago because the property is tax-exempt, according to staffers.