When Greg Iles was pointing fingers, ruffling feathers and shining a 150-watt floodlight on the obvious last week, he alluded that Natchez government should go back to the drawing board entirely.

It’s not the current mayor, the current aldermen, the recent mayors or the recent aldermen that are the problem, Iles all but said. It’s the system by which Natchez has been governed for decades.

The City of Natchez has a weak mayor, strong board of aldermen government. The mayor runs the day-to-day operations of the city, but has no vote when it comes to approving a budget, hiring department heads or approving ordinance changes. He’s only called into action if the six aldermen are split on and issue; then he’s the tiebreaker.

The aldermen call all the shots. Yet they don’t have office hours, or offices for that matter. They aren’t required to have any previous governmental experience or education. And they don’t have to handle anything relating to city government outside two monthly meetings, if they don’t so desire.

But four other forms of government exist in Mississippi, and the experts believe one is better than the others.

A “council/manager” form of government is led largely by an appointed city manager who, by Mississippi code, must be chosen by “experience and administrative qualifications.”

The city manager, appointed by a majority vote of the council, serves as the CEO of the city and manages the budget, hires and fires and supervises all departments.

The council — which includes an elected mayor — must approve the manager’s budget but cannot have a hand in employee hiring or firing.

The council does hire, review and if needed fire the city manager, the city attorney and municipal judge. The council sets its own salary and that of the mayor and manager.

The mayor is a figurehead, who acts as the president of the council and directs meetings, but carries no more weight than a councilman.

This city manager form of government is wildly popular across the country — used by nearly half of the U.S. cities, according to the Stennis Institute of Government — and is endorsed by the International City/County Management Association but has never quite caught on in Mississippi.

Only D’Iberville, Gautier, Grenada, Moorhead, Pascagoula and Picayune operate a city manager form of government.

Iles brought it up last Tuesday night at the Natchez-Adams County Chamber of Commerce Gala, but he wasn’t the first.

Iles even pointed to a 1964 writing of Orrick Metcalfe — the president of Britton & Koontz Bank, owner of a Chevy dealership and aldermen in his day — who called for the city manager model.

Re-writing the way the entire government runs is no easy task. The folks in the positions to do it would likely be taking away their own jobs and power by doing so and legislative approval would be necessary.

But the men and women behind the charge would be creating a legacy, writing history and changing Natchez for the better for years to come.

What better task for an unpopular board and mayor to tackle when city morale is low, budgets are broken and the future seems glum?

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.