Natchez Mayor Denies Report of Nearly $1 Million in Bounced City Checks
NATCHEZ - The mayor called claims that Natchez bounced roughly $1 million in checks "an absolute fabrication" at the Aug. 26 board of aldermen meeting.
At the regular meeting of the Natchez Mayor and Board of Aldermen, the presiding official, identified in meeting records as Mayor Dan Gibson, used his report to push back on online and social-media claims about the city's finances. "The city bounced almost a million dollars in checks. No. That is an absolute fabrication," he told the board. He also said the city had been accused of running a deficit, which he likewise denied, and did not identify the source of either claim during the meeting.
Gibson also praised Adams County Sheriff Travis Patton, saying, "I applaud the sheriff. Sheriff Travis Patton had a great response in our local newspaper and online just this week about this very thing. Falsely reporting public meetings. Falsely reporting public data." He framed both matters as part of the same pattern of inaccurate claims circulating about local government.
The exchange put a public, on-the-record denial of a serious fiscal allegation into the meeting's official record, a step officials and watchdogs alike consider significant when disputes over public money and transparency surface before the facts are settled.