Economic development and land sale talks are the topic of a closed session of the Warren County Board of Supervisors next week.
The county posted a notification in the courthouse late Friday that supervisors would meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday, whereby they’ll enter executive session to mull an economic development project involving a real property sale. Proposed land sales or purchases are among six reasons allowed by the state’s Open Meetings Act to close a meeting of a public body to public view.
Board President Bill Lauderdale said the county owns the property on the agenda but declined further details, citing a willingness to keep negotiations confidential at the request of the business interested in it.
Whether the interested parties would show up and, as a function of closing the session, be named as participants in closed discussion was unknown, Lauderdale said. Some of the Warren County Port Commission membership was expected to be in attendance, as well as the panel’s executive director, Wayne Mansfield.
Any deal for a new business at either the Port of Vicksburg or Ceres industrial park in Flowers would be the third major employer announced this year by county officials.
ISA TanTec expects to open a leather tannery inside the former Calsonic auto parts supply plant at Ceres by Jan. 1. The county, company and the building’s now-former owners agreed on a $1.5 million deal last week to purchase the 140,000 square-foot building for the company using a state-guided loan. The German-invested company pledged to hire 366 people in the first five years for what would be their first U.S. plant.
In May, CAM2, a specialty oil products blender, opened a facility at the port inside a 93,000 square-foot factory formerly home to the Shell Lubricants. The plant employs about 30 people initially, with plans to hire 60 within five years.
Other reasons to close public meetings specified in state law include items to discuss business related to personnel, strategy sessions regarding litigation, investigations of misconduct, proposed land sales or purchases, termination or hiring of employees or extraordinary emergency posing immediate or irrevocable harm to persons or property.