A preliminary finding shows the City of Natchez blatantly violated the state’s open meetings law — three times — to talk about garbage.

The full Mississippi Ethics Commission has been asked to find the City of Natchez violated the law and promise not to do so in the future.

We agree with the assertion the city openly and knowingly shut out the public in garbage collection contract negotiations earlier this year.

Mayor Darryl Grennell seemingly took the blame for the matter, saying, “It’s never my intention to break a law. I made a mistake and will comply going forward.”

But the truth is, Grennell isn’t an attorney. The person at fault is the city’s attorney, Robert Latham, whose actions show he believes government business is often best handled behind closed doors.

Latham, the aldermen and others in city government need to realize that they work for citizens, not the other way around.

In the end, the city’s secretive nature not only trampled on the rights of citizens, but the city seems to have gotten a rotten garbage pickup deal as well. City residents’ rates went up with the new contract.

Just after the city’s foul-smelling handling of its garbage contract, Adams County went through a similar process for unincorporated areas of the county and did so in public, with bidders and residents in the room during discussions.

The result was the county wound up with a far better per household rate than the city.

Logic suggests rural collection in the county should be more expensive than residential collection in the city, but apparently only if the light of the public’s eyes shines on negotiations.

Under the cloak of darkness, politicians do as they please and in this case their deals caused taxpayers to pay more.