Four experienced consultants from Mississippi State University had excellent advice for Natchez and Adams County officials and community leaders last week. Those consultants came for a one-day meeting to hear about Natchez’s assets and the long- and short-range plans leaders have for its future. They came with open minds and years of experience in working with community development.

Mayor Phillip West conducted the meeting and told the group assembled that many strategic plans for moving the city forward sit on shelves, never implemented.

Maybe this time will be different.

The consultants together came up with these suggestions:

4Narrow your focus.

4Make a plan.

4Adopt it.

4Follow it; don’t put it on a shelf.

4Organize priorities.

4Make sure someone is accountable for carrying out the plan.

4Continue to revive downtown.

4Clean up the blight on the entrances into town.

4Promote Natchez as a retail center.

4Foster Natchez’s distinctive sense of place.

4Create a forum to allow people with different points of view to come to the table.

4Create a community foundation.

4Define how you feel about the needy people in the community and what you’re going to do to help them.

4Make Natchez a center for entrepreneurship.

4Make creation of recreation facilities a priority.

4Preserve the open space and farmland in areas outside the city.

The meeting last week does not have to end with this list of suggestions. City and county governments can continue to call on the consultants to help. Meanwhile, here are the crucial steps: Make a plan, adopt it, follow it and make sure someone is accountable for it.

Natchez and the surrounding area have great potential. Imagine the exciting future that awaits a community dedicated to the goals above.