No one wants to be the big bad wolf. In the spectrum of political hot potatoes, wielding the power to order someone’s property demolished for the public good is right up there with asking for a tax increase on baby food.

Neither decision is popular.

Think about it.

Who wants to be the office big, bad wolf who stomps into a neighborhood to huff and puff and blow a house down?

Interestingly, the City of Natchez is struggling with clarifying such responsibility. Apparently, the onus for playing the wolf has flip-flopped through the years between the offices of the city planner and building inspector.

Currently the responsibility seems to lie with the inspector, who evaluates properties and brings them before the aldermen who decide a building’s fate.

For the problem to be resolved, all three parties need to work in unison. Code enforcement, housed in the planning department, would be the first line of defense against dilapidated building problems.

The planning staff should start the process, researching ownership and attempting to uphold the codes.

Then, after working through that process for a reasonable period the matters could be turned over the inspector who can then make a quick assessment and bring the matter to the alderman.

If we think of the situation in comparison to our criminal legal system, easy correlations exist. Code enforcement is the arresting officer. The inspector is the prosecutor. And the aldermen are the judge and jury.

Natchez needs three “wolves” — an empowered code enforcement officer, a cooperative inspector and a resolved board of aldermen — to resolve this lingering hot potato of a problem.