NATCHEZ — Adams County residents who don’t feel like making a trip downtown to pay Justice Court fines no longer have to in order to avoid a trip to the county jail for contempt of court.

County IT Director Lance Bishop told the Adams County Board of Supervisors Monday Justice Court fines — as well as sanitation bills — can now be paid online under the “Online services” portion of the county website adamscountyms.com.

The online transaction is handled by a third party for security purposes and comes with a small fee for processing, Bishop said after the meeting.

“We have to do that, because by law we cannot eat those (credit card processing) costs,” he said.

The third party uploads information about who made payments each day at 5 a.m. the next morning, Bishop said.

Supervisor Mike Lazarus said he welcomes a way for the county to more easily collect the fines and bills owed to it.

“I talked to (a local water association), and they told me a lot of times people don’t have the money to pay their water bill, but sometimes they will put it on a credit card,” Lazarus said. “I hate for people to take on more debt, but if they can pay their fines with a credit card, that is fine with me. We can’t write off that fine, and anything to help getting that money collected is good.”

In other news:

• The board voted to approve a conflict-of-interest waiver for the law firm of Butler Snow.

Butler Snow has represented the county as its bond agent but has also represented a creditor for the county-owned hospital, Natchez Regional Medical Center, in the past, board attorney Scott Slover said.

NRMC has in recent weeks sought to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy.

The board approved a request from ATT to install fiber optic cable in the Kingston area, which County Engineer Jim Marlow said can be used — among other uses —  for faster internet.

• The board heard from county resident John Seyfarth, who asked the county to abandon part of the public road that passes through his property in the Mount Airy Plantation area.

The road was enrolled in the county inventory by proscription in 2000 because county road crews had worked on it in the past, Lazarus said, and it was added after a public hearing.

Seyfarth said the advertisement and public hearing were done when he was out of the area for work and could not object, and the past work on the road had been done at the request of a relative dealing with a bed-ridden spouse.

Seyfarth said he did not want the county to abandon the entire road, only the portion that crossed his property.

“I didn’t give them permission to go across my property,” he said. “It is on my property for one eighth of a mile, and it is solely on my property for that length of time.

“I don’t want the public to travel on my road, but if it is a public road, you can’t stop them.”

Lazarus said the board could contact the other landowners in the area and see how they felt about the abandonment. If everyone was agreeable to the idea, the abandonment process could proceed.

• The board awarded a bid of $2,292,601.94 to Dozer Inc to replace a bridge on Lower Woodville Road.

The bridge, located near Jordan, Kaiser and Sessions, needs to be replaced in order to handle industrial loads moving in and out of the Natchez-Adams County Port area.

Lazarus said the new bridge will be built adjacent to the current structure, which will be torn down after the new spans are completed.