To co-opt the phrase, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” a bit, structural flaws in Natchez-Adams County’s government cannot be fixed in a day, either.

But the city and county took a baby step toward progress this week. For years and years, we’ve complained over the duplication of services between the local 911 dispatching unit at the Natchez Police Department and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office’s insistence that they must have their own, independent dispatchers.

Through the years, we’ve long argued that it makes little sense to have two sets of dispatchers just a few miles from one another, manned at taxpayer expense 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Our area isn’t a huge metropolis. One could argue a central, Miss-Lou dispatching center could handle all calls for Natchez, Adams County, Vidalia, Ferriday and Concordia Parish if all sides would cooperate.

Instead of agreeing to work together to potentially increase the quality of service and potentially decrease taxpayer funding, Natchez and Adams County worked a slight compromise.

Rather than combine dispatching, they simply agreed to use a common, shared dispatching software which should help at least lessen the likelihood for dropped calls and lost call data. With the new software, 911 calls — at least those coming from landlines — will be properly routed to the correct agency. Prior to that, 911 calls originating in Adams County had to be manually transferred to the sheriff’s office.

As Adams County Emergency Management Director Robert Bradford said, “It is like you are in the same house, but in different rooms.”

Perhaps one day all parties can find the courage to cede a bit of control and do the right things — consolidate city and county law enforcement fully.