The cameras were rolling and the Natchez mayor and board of aldermen were broadcasting not one, but two shows Tuesday morning.

It happened to be one of the shortest meetings so far for this current administration. It took just a little more than 49 minutes for city leaders to do their business and go home.

Had it not been for the last 17 minutes of Tuesday’s meeting, the citizens of Natchez would have been given the impression that everything is financially in order at City Hall.

In fact, if you had been listening to the mayor and aldermen you would have come away with the impression that the biggest issue facing the town is littering and abandoned housing.

Neither the mayor nor four of the five aldermen present mentioned a word about the current city budget, about million dollar loans, a freeze on step raises for fireman and police officers or the possibility of layoffs.

In fact, one of the biggest highlights of the meeting was a report of the city’s audit. The city’s financial books were without blemish, auditors noted.

Yet, if you had just tuned into the last 17 minutes of Tuesday’s meeting, you would have come away with a very different perception.

Aldermen Dan Dillard spent more than 10 minutes expressing his concerns about the city’s current financial standing.

In almost alarmist tones, Dillard used phrases like “internal bleeding,” “curious transfers,” and “digging ourselves into a hole.”

At the same time he tried to assure citizens that the board was addressing with the issue, Dillard intimated that the city’s financial house is in disarray.

“It concerns this alderman that we cannot project with certainty what our financial standing is,” Dillard said.

As evidence, Dillard pointed the ever increasing loans that the city takes out every year just to cover the budget. The tax anticipatory loans use the following year’s tax revenues to pay back the loans.

In the end, Dillard said it is almost impossible to find out where these loans are in the budget.

The discussion angered city clerk Donnie Holloway, leading to a heated discussion about the issue.

In the end, the public was left with the impression that Dillard was on top of the issue and the mayor and other aldermen were ignoring the current crisis.

But is this the case?

Or is the current situation under control as other city leaders suggest by not commenting about it in their regular meetings with the public?

My hunch is that the current financial crisis is somewhere in between.

And that is the problem that the public is left with.

If the current board doesn’t take the opportunity — the responsibility — to discuss the issues in an open forum, then the public is left listening to those claiming that the sky is falling.

To be fair, aldermen Dillard did say while crossing his fingers that the city could very well meet its budget this year. He did not want to give the impression that he and other leaders are just sitting on their hands.

But Dillard’s strategic choice of alarming words sets the stage for anxiety.

That is something that we do not need at this point.

We need communication. We need facts and numbers. We need a cooperative spirit at City Hall.

All of this needs to be addressed openly and in a forum that invites public scrutiny.

That is the kind of show we need at aldermen meetings, not the theatrics we saw Tuesday morning.

Ben Hillyer is the Web editor at the Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3540 or ben.hillyer@natchezdemocrat.com