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NATCHEZ—Supervisors Ricky Gray and Angela Hutchins expressed their displeasure at the Adams County Board of Supervisors’ action on March 3, when they were in Washington, D.C., on county business.

Gray, who represents county residents in District 4, and Hutchins, who represents county residents of District 3, were in Washington, D.C. on March 3 for the National Association of County Officials meeting.

At the March 3 meeting, District 1 Supervisor Wes Middleton, District 2 Supervisor Kevin Wilson, who is board president, and District 5 Supervisor Warren Gaines voted to renew the county’s health insurance contract with Agent Fred Parker and Byrne Insurance Agency, which has held the contract for many years.

In addition, Wilson and Middleton voted during a closed session to have County Attorney Scott Slover send a letter to United Infrastructure, the county’s garbage collector, that the county was terminating its contract based on breach of contract. The garbage collector did not provide proof of insurance on two different occasions when the county asked for it, and it was discovered by the county after one of the company’s garbage trucks was involved in an accident with a private citizen that the company is not adequately insured. Gaines voted against the action.

However, after Monday’s board meeting, Slover said he had not sent the garbage company any such letter.

“Everything happened while we were gone. My problem is this: I thought that this board had changed the board meeting to the 6th, that Thursday. Maybe I’m wrong. Can someone explain to me how the board meeting got changed back to Monday after it was changed to the 6th,” Gray asked. “How did everybody on the board receive information that the meeting was changed back except me? Was the Monday meeting even legal?”

Slover said the Monday meeting was legal.

“That was a statutory meeting,” Slover said. “I don’t know where the confusion came from.”

The county’s meetings are held the first and third Monday of each month at 9 a.m. at the county offices at 314 State St.

“By statute, you are right,” Hutchins said. “But before we left, we had said we were not meeting until Thursday so every board member could attend the meeting. I got a call five minutes until 9 on Monday telling me a meeting was set, after we had already approved that the meeting would be Thursday. So, I jumped on the call.”

Hutchins joined the supervisors’ meeting remotely from Washington, D.C., as did Gray after Hutchins notified him the meeting was going forward. However, Gray could not hear because of noise on the call, so he said he left the call after about five minutes.

“My thing is, a lot of things got approved that I later found out about and there were certain things we said we would not do unless all board members were present. A lot of things occurred in that board meeting where all board members were not present,” Hutchins said.

Wilson and Gaines were absent from Monday’s meeting.

Gray says county attorney is playing politics

Gray then directed his disappointment to Slover.

“Scott, you are my boy. I like you. I’m not going to lie to you, and you have never lied to me. But I’m going to say publicly, you are one of the best lawyers in the state, but you have to stop getting into politics and do what’s right for this county. You tell me one thing and turn around and tell other board members something else. And it’s confusing to me and it’s causing problems on this board,” Gray said.

“Anytime Ricky Gray is wrong, when my attorney tells me I’m wrong, I’m going to follow your lead. I’m always going to follow your lead. But now, it’s getting to the point where, I don’t know if you have too much on you … It’s not right,” Gray said. “If someone does not have insurance … it’s my job as a supervisor to do what’s best for the county. You don’t need to take me out of the scenario. I don’t even have a vote. I guess y’all figured we weren’t going to vote for it so that’s the reason they changed the meeting.

“We need to get back in order because, this is just me, this is out of order. I study government and I’m not the attorney. You are the attorney and it’s your job to say that we are in order. You have always told me, ‘I don’t think that’s right,’ and I follow you. That’s why I’m saying this publicly — not to make you bitter, but to make you better.”

Were ‘there some favors out there being done?’

Gray then questioned whether the new insurance package supervisors approved on March 3 had increased or decreased in cost.

“Let me say this and I’m going to move on. Didn’t anybody ask if it decreased or increased,” Gray said.

“That was approved so fast and I voted against it because every board member should have been there when this was voted on,” Hutchins said.

“We had another vendor out there that was going to give us a cost on what insurance would be. It could have been through Blue Cross Blue Shield, I don’t know. My thing is we didn’t even give that company a chance to come back and give us some figures on what insurance would cost. We just jumped and approved (Parker and Byrne Insurance Agency) right off the bat.

“We don’t know what the savings or cost were going to be and for that reason, I voted against it. We didn’t even give that other company a chance to come and tell us if we were going to have a savings or an increase. That’s something that should have been done. That was disrespectful to that company and that’s not how this board should work,” Hutchins said. “To just jump in and do something? I don’t know if there are some favors out there being done or whatever. And I’m not saying I was not going to vote for that. I probably was going to vote for that because it’s local and it’s good for us. But we should have taken the time to find out if it was going to be an increase or a decrease.”

Middleton: Garbage contractor should have been terminated sooner

Middleton said he knew moving the meeting to March 6 was discussed, but he never received confirmation of the change.

“I never saw it on the calendar. Then, I received an agenda for the Monday meeting on Friday evening or Saturday,” he said.

“The only regret I have is that the (garbage collection) contract should have already been notified before that. We gave them a timeframe to provide proof of insurance and they didn’t do it. They should have been terminated that day,” Middleton said. “I have a job to do and that’s to do what is right for this county. If they were acting illegally and not holding up their end of the deal, they should have been terminated that day. They should not have been extended even five minutes or 10 minutes. They did not meet that deadline. We should have done it at the next county meeting.”

Middleton said he had concerns about the other insurance company who was allegedly preparing a quote on health insurance for the county.

“As far as insurance goes, I voted because it was what was best for this county. I had tremendous concerns about the group who came here. I had concerns about their character. I had concerns about the people involved in it and I had concerns about the way they accessed some of our employee information that I don’t think was right. And if they were the lowest I would not have gone with them. That’s not who we do business with. I don’t do business with people who don’t act right and put people in positions to give them information they shouldn’t have and that’s where I stand on that,” Middleton said.

Slover: ‘I’ll try to get better’

After Monday’s meeting, Slover said he took Gray’s comments as constructive criticism.

“I took what he had to say as constructive criticism. Ricky and I are friends. I will try to get better from it,” Slover said. “I enjoy working for Ricky and Angela, and I want to work better. I took it as things he wants me to improve on. Neither of us carry a grudge or take things personally. Ricky and I are good and same thing with Angela. I have nothing but positive things to say.”