Last week, something amazing happened.

For the first time — at least that we recall — city and county leaders actually began the pushing and pulling required when groups attempt to work together.

They actually sat down together and talked about recreation. Critics may look at the meeting and say, “Nothing important happened,” but that would be missing a small, but important, step along the way — talking about the elected leaders real worries: losing control over public money.

After years of talking around the issue of whether or not to build a new, joint city-county recreational facility, last Thursday the issue at hand was much smaller, but equally as important — hiring a city-county recreation director.

Creating such a position came at the request of the Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission.

The work required to agree on the director’s position, in microcosm, could ultimately represent the larger recreation complex decisions.

The recreation commission believes having a director in place could help build up the community’s recreation program ahead of possibly building up a new physical recreation complex at some point in the future.

But last week’s meeting indicated elected leaders are hung up on the matters of money and control.

Until city and county leaders realize that public funds don’t belong to “them” — remember public money belongs to all of us — finding common ground may be difficult.

But keeping the conversation going is important. It’s the only way we’ll ever improve recreation for our community.