With a unanimous vote the Natchez Board of Aldermen selected the seventh and final player for the team challenged with launching the area’s new economic development engine, Natchez, Inc.

The mere way the vote was handled should show the naysayers that this project would be different this time, a simple, but powerful word — unanimous.

Adams County Supervisors made a similar vote recently when they made their selection to the transitional, start-up board of Natchez, Inc.

Unanimity among our elected officials is great, and up until recently, has been the exception rather than the rule. But maybe that’s changing.

If it is, that change is coming about through a newly awakened sense of seriousness among local business leaders that they must be a part of the solution to the area’s problems.

That’s exciting, even refreshing.

Natchez and Adams County have many great things to offer — excellent quality of life, tons of economic development potential, more charm than a debutante ball. But what we’ve lacked until recently was a cohesiveness of purpose and a sense of direction.

We’re starting to see that gel now in such things as a revitalized, more effective Chamber of Commerce in Natchez-Adams County and across the Miss-Lou.

We’ve seen that in the formation of the Natchez, Inc. board that’s starting to take flight.

And we’re starting to see that in bonds of regionalism that have begun forming across the river, too.

That unanimity of purpose and vision will eventually lead our community to the next level of success. But we can only get there if we work together, unified with one purpose and one goal — making our community great.