For nearly three decades the City of Natchez and Adams County have partnered law enforcement forces to fight illegal drugs in our community.

Pooling resources and working together makes sense.

The partnership created, the Natchez-Adams Metro Narcotics Task Force, is akin to a marriage — an agreement between two distinctively different parties to join as one for a common goal.

But recently we learned one spouse is considering filing for divorce, or at least threatening it.

Like many marriages, the partnership has had ups and downs.

Natchez Mayor Butch Brown recently made it known that he thinks the city should consider a divorce from the county.

He cites a lack of communication as the problem and suggests the narcotics unit works more for the sheriff’s office than for the city.

His perceptions may be sound, but pointing a finger without first looking in the mirror, isn’t fair.

The city has effectively given up on the marriage some time ago.

Their agreement spells out a plan of how things are to work. The city isn’t living up to its end of the bargain, by only providing one of its officers to the unit, when the agreement stipulates a minimum of two officers.

The agreement further spells out that the county sheriff and the city police chief together make up the controlling board for the narcotics agency. They are supposed to meet monthly and must both agree to any plans, changes or significant expenditures.

Are those meetings happening? Are both sides discussing plans, expenditures, etc.? If not, the blame is two-way.

Perhaps, like most marriages in trouble, the solution isn’t to simply walk away, but to at least try and talk through the troubles first, in a calm, civil manner — and do what each promised to do in the agreement.