After years of community-wide begging and pleading for common sense and unity in the simple, but critically important task of handling emergency calls, Natchez and Adams County finally merged dispatching duties recently.

Although the process is not yet seamless, in theory, when a person calls 911 in Natchez-Adams County, their call will be taken by a common, unified department capable of handling any need — city police, county sheriff’s deputies or firefighters.

When the kinks are worked out, citizens should be able to trust that a call to 911 — even for non-emergency matters — will put them in touch with professionals who are in direct communication with the proper agencies to handle the problems or concerns.

No more transferring of calls. No more miscommunications.  Clear, concise communication should result.

We applaud city and county leaders, the E911 board, the Natchez police, Adams County sheriff and the county’s emergency management staff for working together to make this a reality.

We hope the combined dispatching center will soon show a savings for city and county taxpayers and further provide an example for what may be possible with unifying and consolidating the city and county law enforcement efforts as well.

We long for the day when our community operates as one, and, in the process, taxpayers earn the best value for their hard-earned tax dollars.