Tuesday, October 02, 2001

The Natchez Democrat

In its Monday meeting, the Adams County Board of Supervisors

adopted a resolution of support for an application to make 13

counties in Mississippi a rural renewal community.

State officials will soon submit to the U.S. Department of

Housing and Urban Development an RC application for an area extending

north through Madison County.

If the designation is approved, businesses in the area would

get a tax credit of up to $1,500 on the first $10,000 of each

worker’s taxable income, provided those employees also live in

the RC area.

&uot;Being a renewal community is extremely important,&uot;&160;said

Michael Ferdinand, executive director of the Natchez-Adams County

Economic Development Authority. &uot;It’s difficult for any area

to apply for and receive federal tax credits.&uot;

When someone looking for a new location for a company comes

to town, &uot;many times, they’re looking not for reasons to

come to your area, but for reasons to eliminate you from their

list,&uot; Ferdinand said. One of those reasons, he said, could

be the absence of such tax credits.

The Natchez Board of Aldermen voted Sept. 25 and the Jefferson

County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to also join the application,

said Natchez Community Development Director James Johnston.

The governor’s office should submit an RC application next

week to HUD, which should decide by the end of the year which

areas will be designated rural RCs.

Only 15 areas in the nation will be designated as rural RCs.

The application will include a map of the proposed RC area, which

must be contiguous and must include less than 200,000 people.

Johnston and Ferdinand told supervisors they will send the

governor’s office several different configurations of Adams County

census tracts that could be included in the proposed RC area.