Thank goodness last week’s Tropical Storm Gordon was not as advertised.

The storm had been predicted to be much worse than it turned out to be when it came ashore on the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Wednesday.

The storm also had been projected to come directly toward the Miss-Lou after making landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Instead, Gordon turned out to be overblown and bypassed the Miss-Lou altogether.

We’ll count that as our No. 1 top good news item from the past week, which had plenty of other good news, including the following:

* The City of Natchez came up with a way to give its newly hired police officers a raise. The low starting pay of $13.03 per hour had long been an obstacle for the police department to attract new recruits. And the starting pay was for any new hire regardless of experience. Last week the Natchez Mayor and Board of Aldermen agreed to raise the starting pay to $15.50 per hour, which will make the pay more in line with what other surrounding communities are paying their starting officers. Funding for the raises came by eliminating two of the vacant eight positions. Better to have six vacancies with a higher starting salary than eight vacancies at a low salary.

* The Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission approved the YMCA hiring a full-time aquatics director to manage the community swimming pool. The YMCA made a good choice in Monica Bihm a former competitive swimmer and lifelong advocate of swimming to take the position, which will free the YMCA up to manage youth sports and other programs as necessary.

Have a great week and keep your eyes open for more positive news.