Seven months ago, the Adams County Board of Supervisors opted to kill the ignition switch on the community’s economic development engine. Today, city and county leaders are still trying to figure out exactly how to get it started again.

In a January meeting, supervisors voted — in a split 3-2 vote — to end funding for the jointly funded city-county economic development authority.

The decision came with no prior communication to the city or the EDA boards. That’s symptomatic of the bigger problem — no unity of purpose.

In fact, the group discovered — once they started talking — that none had followed the law that created the EDA in the first place. The law required the two agencies meet each August to discuss funding. Those meetings have apparently never occurred.

If the current EDA structure is dysfunctional, the city and county can blame no one but themselves as they appoint the board members and were responsible for the EDA’s creation.

A few select members of the city, county and business community are working with the Mississippi Development Authority to consider ways to retool the EDA going forward.

While it’s a great theoretical notion to think that three or four select people can decide what’s best for our community on their own, the truth is that they need public input.

We hope and expect that the results of the small group’s work will be made public and that taxpayers have an opportunity to share their thoughts on what will be done to EDA well before it’s signed into law.

Again, all of this started with a complete lack of communication on the part of the city, county and EDA. The solution is going to be putting communication first. Before the EDA’s engine is fired up again, we need the community — the whole community — to be in full support of it.

Otherwise the sputtering engine will struggle for years to come.