The pecan factory had to come down, and it had to come down immediately, city leaders say.

Mayor Phillip West said he issued the demolition order in the way he did because he did not want locals to complain to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History about the action and prolong the building’s demolition even further.

“Our experience in the past, (Archives and History) gets political pressure from people in Natchez, they try to placate them, and we get caught up in it,” West said.

West issued an executive order to destroy the building on Feb. 8 without meeting any of the steps MDAH had previously said were requirements. The city and MDAH had discussed demolition in the past to make way for condominiums slated for construction on the bluff.

West said Friday the city did not appeal the Archives and History steps because the city didn’t know an appeal was an option.

“(The chancery hearing last week) was the first I’d heard of that,” West said.

In the hearing in Adams County Chancery Court, an attorney for the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office suggested the city appeal the landmark status ruling to the Hinds County Circuit Court.

“We had no idea it could be appealed,” West said.

West said he used his executive order to make the town safer, and although he said he consulted no one before he signed it, several aldermen backed him after the fact.

“I support the mayor 100 percent,” Alderman Theodore “Bubber” West said. “The mayor has the right to issue an emergency executive order. If the mayor was wrong, then the statute was wrong. He was not wrong.”

Phillip West said he remembered a ruling that the land, not the building, was declared historic, although the Pecan Factory’s landmark certification can be read otherwise.

“If that building in the condition it was was a landmark, Archives and History needs to re-evaluate how they do things,” Theodore West said.

Other aldermen agreed the building was a danger, but reserved judgment on what would happen next in the legal realm.

“It should have been torn down a long time ago,” Alderman David Massey said. “It has always been (an eyesore) — since we took it over. I’m actually glad that it’s down. Now we need to clean it up. I wish the controversy would stop; I wish people appealing to the Supreme Court would stop and let us do what we need to do.”

West said he most certainly did not think what he did was illegal. He thought what he did was for the health and safety of the town.

Because ownership of the land was being questioned in court, he said, he felt it was important to demolish the dilapidated building as soon as possible.

The city has the right to demolish buildings it sees as unsafe or dangerous, even if they’re on private property.

Normally, if the city wants to demolish a building that poses a hazard, they go through a process of alerting the property owner, give them time to correct the situation, and, if they get no response, the board of aldermen vote to have it demolished.

In this case, though, West said he felt it was enough of an emergency to issue an executive order. He said he received information about the dangers of children playing in the building, people wandering in and out and skateboarders a year ago, but the danger did not sink in until the developers and several aldermen brought it to his attention. That was days before the demolition was ordered.

“Since the ownership was being questioned, if something happened, the city could be put in a liable position,” West said. “It would be even more of our responsibility if it was on the record as having been brought to our attention.”

And the mayor’s move was an individual judgment he had to make, Alderman Jake Middleton said.

“That was the mayor’s call,” he said. “He made the decision he deemed best for the city. If I were in his position, I don’t know the call I would have made.”

Massey said he couldn’t determine whether the actions were legal or not.

“I think what he was trying to do was for the right reasons, but it’s up to the courts to decide whether what he did was something illegal,” Massey said. “I don’t think he looked at it that way.”

Aldermen Ricky Gray, Bob Pollard and Joyce Arceneaux Mathis could not be reached for comment.

Costs

West said he did not know how much the demolition cost the city, but that public works would know.

Public Works Director Ronnie Ivey said he didn’t have the numbers right off.

“It was all in-house,” Ivey said. “You’re just looking at fuel and time is all.”

When public works demolishes a private building, they charge the demolition cost plus a 25 percent fee, Natchez Building Official Paul Dawes said.

Sometimes, private contractors will do the work, generally cheaper, and bill the city, who will then pass on the cost to the property owner.

When a Beaumont Street structure was torn down in November, the private contractor charged $6,200 to demolish and haul away the debris.