Five Natchez aldermen decided Monday to plow ahead with a plan to give land to the Natchez-Adams School District in spite of significant opposition.

The timing of the decision to donate the land known as the bean field to the school district was not urgent.

More discussion and more understanding could have occurred.

Aldermen could have stepped up as leaders and tried to find a way for the city and school district to collectively listen to the concerns of what is arguably half the community opposed to the plan as envisioned.

Monday’s city decision paved the way for something more than half the voters said they did not want.

In May, voters handily rejected a bond issue for a school construction and renovation plan. Instead of regrouping and seeking to better understand why people were opposed, the school district simply found a way to work around voters.

The issue causes emotions from each side of the debate, those determined to build a new school at whatever cost and those that fear the costs of that same school.

Sadly, such discord is commonplace, accepted and even expected now.

We should be better than this.

We should be a community that can serve as a model for how people of different backgrounds, different races and different economic positions can work together for the common good.

We still have time to continue the dialog, seek to understand one another’s positions and make a plan that, as dissenting Alderwoman Sarah Smith said Monday, “the whole community can feel good about.”

If not, we will remain divided and continue to languish as a community.