He said it once. And he is saying it again.
Ward 4 Alderman Aubry Brent Jr. refuses to let his fellow board members forget about the crumbling fourth block of downtown Yazoo City.
Brent reminded the city council that the southern most block of Main Street is in deplorable condition during Thursday’s board meeting.
“The lower end of downtown is going to hinder our economic development if we have people coming into the community,” Brent said in reaction of Mayor Diane Delaware's charge for citizens to clean up their properties. “When you come in from the back end of town of town, it's terrible in terms of those bricks that are all torn down.”
He said it was his understanding that the facades of the abandoned buildings had to be left standing, “but all of the bricks that are down in the back, it's a health hazard for number one. It just doesn't look good, and I think we as a city need to make a strong and concerted effort to get that properties cleaned up,” he said.
Brent said since some of the dilapidated properties have been donated to the city, “it's incumbent on us to go ahead and do what we need to do to make that place look better.”
For those dilapidated properties that are still owned by citizens, most of the being out-of-town citizens, Brent encouraged taking action to advise the owners of their responsibilities in cleaning up their properties.
“What we have is simply individuals that have owned the property and they have left Yazoo City and it doesn't look like they have any intentions of coming back,” he said. “It's up to us to do what we need to do to get these properties straight.”
