NATCHEZ — Members of the Adams County Board of Supervisors said they had no intention of skirting public meetings laws when its members got a brief update about the operations of Natchez Inc. behind closed doors Monday.

The information they received was volunteered and received little to no discussion from the supervisors, they said.

The board had entered into executive session to discuss two matters of legal strategy with lawsuits, two potential industrial prospects and the sale of property.

During the discussion, Natchez Inc. Executive Director Chandler Russ updated the board about efforts by Natchez Inc., the county’s public-private economic development partnership, to bring another employee on board.

While employee matters and contracts qualify for executive session, Natchez Inc. employees do not work for the county even though it is a funding agent for the group.

Prior to the executive session, Supervisor Mike Lazarus indicated he did not think the matter would qualify for executive session, and it was not specifically mentioned when the board entered into the session.

“The county is not signing the contract, it wouldn’t be our employee and Chandler is not our employee,” Lazarus said after the meeting. “The county is not signing the contract, but I am not going to argue with the attorney.”

While Lazarus stayed in the session, he said the best thing he could have done was recuse himself, “but then I wouldn’t know what was going on.”

But Supervisors Calvin Butler and Angela Hutchins said the matter came up during discussions of other matters Natchez Inc. is involved in, particularly the sale of property to industrial clients.

“(Russ) brought it up talking about the land at (the county-owned former International Paper property), what they were doing to recruit more industry,” Butler said. “That is when they told us they were enhancing their staff to help move that land.”

Butler said the supervisors had previously met one-on-one with Natchez Inc. representatives and were already familiar with the issue.

“He basically mentioned that there was a meeting later on to get the blessing from Natchez NOW,” Butler said.

Natchez NOW is the private-sector funding partnership of Natchez Inc.

“We were not meeting for information purposes. He brought up that they were bringing someone else on board,” Butler said. “But it didn’t go into details about how much they were paying or anything like that.”

Hutchins said while the arrangement was mentioned, the supervisors basically agreed to read over the possible arrangement without any significant discussion.

“If it doesn’t need to be in executive session, I would definitely call for it to be in open session,” she said.

Board attorney Scott Slover did not return a phone message Monday afternoon.

Supervisor David Carter could not be reached for comment. Supervisor Darryl Grennell was not present for the executive session item.

The board of supervisors was cited by the Mississippi Ethics Commission in 2010 for a 2009 incident in which the board voted in an executive session to fund the former economic development authority — which has since been disbanded — after entering into executive session to discuss matters “pertaining to litigation, personnel and industrial development.”

After the meeting was re-opened, Slover said the board authorized him in executive session to negotiate the sale of three acres of the IP property to Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Association for $30,000 an acre.

SMEPA wants to purchase the property to build a new substation that can provide adequate power for operations at Delta-Energy’s new facility and other prospects that may develop, Slover said.