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NATCHEZ — At the Feb. 3 meeting of the Adams County Board of Supervisors, Bill Jones of Dozer Construction, the Morgantown Road improvement project contractor, updated supervisors on challenges involving his company’s work.

Among those challenges was navigating underground utility infrastructure, particularly natural gas pipelines involving Atmos Energy.

When Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson read about these challenges, he stepped up and took the lead in setting up a meeting between Atmos officials and Bill Jones of Dozer to work out any obstacles in that work.

“We have some gentlemen with us representing Atmos Energy — Kejuan McClean, Greg Williamson and David Skinner. I want to thank you all and Atmos for being such a good community partner,” Gibson said.

Gibson set up meetings and conference calls between all parties in the Morgantown Road project to iron out any communication issues.

“Everyone has been concerned about the progress on Morgantown Road. Our number one challenge is that we haven’t even gotten to the next phase yet, and we are encountering a lot of underground utilities. Dealing with those challenges has been difficult.

“Bill Jones with Dozer Construction has been very helpful and we have had a number of conversations. We were able to establish between Friday and today some great communication between Dozer and Atmos, and I want to thank Atmos for stepping forward,” Gibson said.

Gibson said he hopes to set up meetings with AT&T and Entergy this week.

“The key to everything is teamwork, and communication is essential to good teamwork. We are making sure that communication is happening,” Gibson said.

He said he had a good meeting with Adams County Attorney Scott Slover and Supervisors Warren Gaines and Ricky Gray.

“We are going to deal with the underground utilities. Just like with any project, you don’t know what is there until you find it there,” Gibson said. “This is a major project we have been trying to fund for 20 years. We are still needing more money to complete this project and we are going to end up spending more money on this Morgantown Road project than we spent on the entirety of paving 50 streets in the city last year.”

It was announced at the Feb. 3 meeting of the county supervisors that a CAP loan from the Mississippi Development Authority had been denied for Morgantown Road. CAP loans, county officials were told, were only available to projects that are tied to industrial development.

Gibson said as a Plan B, officials will apply for a USDA loan for the approximately $2 million needed to complete the Morgantown Road project.

“We would rather not rely on a loan if we can get the funding from the state,” he said. “We are working with key members of the state legislature to seek funding to finish Morgantown Road.

“I want to apologize to residents and citizens who use this roadway so often. We know this is a major imposition. We are still about 25 percent short of the funds we need but don’t give up on us. We are never going to give up on you,” Gibson said.

Further, Gibson said he expects the county supervisors at their meeting on Monday to ask the county’s engineering firm to begin a design that is less expensive for the next phase of the project if possible.

“We want to save money on this project if we can,” he said.