Three people served as Warren County’s circuit clerk in 2014, a statement that makes the office itself the top story of 2014 in Vicksburg.
The clerk’s office was declared vacant May 19 by the Warren County Board of Supervisors after a state auditor’s investigation produced evidence three-term clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree had declared residence in Madison County in 2013. At the time, she faced criminal charges for embezzlement.
Jan Hyland Daigre, a former school board member, won a special election runoff for the office Nov. 25 over interim clerk Greg Peltz and was sworn in Dec. 1.
Special Judge Henry Lackey sentenced Palmertree Sept. 29 to five years in prison for embezzling $12,000 from the civil and criminal accounts under her care. Those accounts contain fines and fees associated with civil and criminal cases.
She was indicted again in October for stealing from her office’s restitution fund and falsifying her record books from January 2013 until she was removed from office. The secret, three-count indictment was sealed until the ex-clerk was served a copy at the Rankin County satellite prison facility where she is serving a five-year sentence on the first indictment. A trial on the additional charges is set for April.
Supervisors acted to remove Palmertree after two rounds of testimony in a civil case involving Palmertree, the county and the auditor in Hinds County Chancery Court ended in continuances. That litigation, in which she and the other entities have sued each other, involves more than $1.04 million in payments above the state’s salary cap for circuit clerks and questionable payments to her predecessor and father, Larry Ashley. Testimony is expected to restart this month.

City renews sports complex talks
Vicksburg’s search for a sports complex turned a new chapter when the city’s ad hoc recreation committee recommended a multipurpose facility on at least 270 acres with baseball, softball and soccer fields, tennis and basketball courts, walking and bike trails and space for a pool and event and meeting rooms.
Details were presented at a Dec. 15 public meeting.
The committee was appointed in May by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to examine the city’s recreation programs and present recommendations to improve the overall program over the next five years, and first met on June 5, opening discussions that indicated a move toward a multipurpose recreation complex.
A 200-acre tract of land off Fisher Ferry Road near St. Michael Catholic Church is the favored site of city officials after a sale offering brought no takers. In 2003, the city bought the land for $325,000 for a rec complex, but abandoned the concept six years later after preparation costs surpassed $3 million. City fathers put the Fisher Ferry site back on the front burner to avoid spending more money on privately-owned real estate.

Moody’s restores city’s bond rating
After more than two years since losing its bond rating for insufficient financial information, the City of Vicksburg received an A2 bond rating from Moody’s Investment Services, a New York-based provider of credit ratings and risk analysis.
Moody’s in February 2012 pulled the city’s A-1 bond rating, “because it (Moody’s) believes it has insufficient or otherwise inadequate information to support the maintenance of the rating,” according to information released when the company pulled the ratings. The problem, according to Moody’s, was a backlog of incomplete city audits going back to 2008.
The city’s 2008 audit was completed in 2012. The 2008, 2009 and 2010 audits were competed in 2012. The 2011 and 2012 audits were done in 2013, and the 2013 audit in May.

Local officials push criminal justice overhaul
An overhaul of the state’s criminal justice system had major input from Vicksburg and Warren County officials. Among notable changes, the law increased the threshold of values for grand larceny, defined violent crime, rearranged sentencing guidelines and allowed for more alternatives sentences, such as drug court.
The criminal justice overhaul was based on a bill written by George Flaggs Jr. before he retired from the state Legislature to become mayor. As president of the Mississippi Prosecutors Association, Ninth Circuit District Attorney helped push the reforms though the legislature.
Smith also served on a criminal justice reform task force with Warren County Supervisor Bill Lauderdale.

County sees two new industries
A new tenant at Ceres Research and Industrial Interplex was announced in 2014, one that pledged hundreds of new jobs within five years and filled a vacancy at the sprawling industrial park at Flowers.
ISA TanTec, a German-invested leather packer and tannery, plans its first U.S. plant in a 140,000 square-foot warehouse on the east end of park in 2015. The company’s investment is estimated at $10.1 million and involves hiring 366 people in the first five years.

Funds from a $2 million capital improvement loan secured by the county earlier this year are financing the purchase of the building. Terms call for it to be repaid over 15 years. A temporary wastewater treatment facility was being completed in recent weeks, with a permanent system expected to take six to eight months, officials have said.
The company sells leather to name-brand shoe and boot makers at its current plants in China and Vietnam.
At the Port of Vicksburg, specialty oils blender CAM2 opened a plant after moving to Mississippi from Colorado. The plant employs about 30 people.

School district raises millage rate
The Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees approved a 4 percent millage tax hike June 30, increasing the school district millage by about 2 mills, from 47.81 mills to almost 50 mills, which is projected to generate about $1.6 million.
The 4 percent was the maximum millage increase the board could seek without calling a referendum.
Districts traditionally request a certain amount of money from county governments, who then levy the necessary mills to meet that figure.
Property taxes are expected to rise $34.30 as a result of this year’s millage hike.

Vicksburg National Military Park to expand
A year after the sesquicentennial commemoration of the 47-day siege here, Vicksburg National Military Park continued to expand its offerings and got the official go-ahead to grow.
In December, President Obama gave the park approval to acquire more than 10,000 acres of land in Claiborne and Hinds County related to the battles preceding the Siege of Vicksburg. Land swapping and purchasing is expected to begin this year.
Nationally recognized programs continued throughout the year including an evening with historian Ed Bearss and a first of its kind symposium on the Vicksburg Riots of 1874.

Top trials end in deadlocked juries
The county’s two most significant and longest awaited trials of the year ended in deadlock.
Warren County juries failed to reach a verdict in the murder case against Tyla Vega and the prescription fraud case against Dr. Laurence Francis Chenier III.
Vega was 14 on May 11, 2011, when she shot her stepmother, Michelle Vega, in the face at the family home on Jones Road. Defense attorney Marshall Sanders argued that Vega was the victim of physical and psychological abuse and the shooting was in self-defense. The case is slated for re-trial this spring.
Jurors acquitted Chenier of a single count of conspiracy, but split 7-5 in favor of guilt on the 73 counts of prescription forgery against him. Chenier is accused of writing prescriptions to feed the drug addiction of his former live-in girlfriend, Patti Carr. Carr was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of prescription fraud.
It was unclear if Chenier would face re-trial in the coming year.

Taxpayer funded entities finish year in black
The Vicksburg Convention Center, NRoute and the Vicksburg Housing Authority each reached milestones during 2014 when they all finished their fiscal years in the black with a surplus.
Convention Center executive director Annette Kirklin announced at an October meeting of the center’s advisory board that the center finished fiscal 2014 in the black with a $7,010 fund balance for the first time in its 17-year-history, adding, “thank you Vicksburg.”
The center’s income for the year was $404,985, under its projected $456,543 in revenue, while expenses were $927,092, which was below the projected $943,543.
Revenue from the 2 percent bed tax that forms the bulk of the center’s revenue stream, was $529,116, $42,116 more than the projected $487,000 for 2014.

Also in October, officials with NRoute, the city’s public transit system, which had been strapped for cash over the past four years, announced it finished fiscal 2014 in the black with a net income of $18,499.70. Officials credited the improved financial picture to changes the system’s Board of Commissioners made in 2013 and assistance from the city, which increased its annual supplement to NRoute from $125,000 to $200,000 a year.
The Vicksburg Housing Authority finished its 2014 fiscal year with a $190,000 surplus, the housing authority’s executive director Ben Washington told its Board of Commissioners.

Disputed properties put up for sale
A years-long fight between Vicksburg and Warren County governing boards over county-owned property in the city’s historic preservation district apparently ended in December with a simple sale offering.
On Dec. 18, county supervisors set an asking price of $172,000 for the old justice court building at 1019 Adams St. and neighboring property at 1015 Adams St. Each was the subject of haggling over the legal right of the county to demolish each for additional parking. The price represented what the county paid for the properties.
In April, the city’s Board of Architectural Review took up the county’s most recent attempt to raze both structures. By October, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen backed up the lower board’s continued denial of the county’s request, leaving the county to either sue the city in chancery court or put the buildings up for sale.
Originally, the county intended to build a new justice court on the old justice court property when purchased in 1984. Purchase of 1015 Adams St., once home to the Verhine law firm, in 2002 was tied to those plans, which remained tied up in the city’s strict rules against demolition inside the historic district.

Staff reporters Josh Edwards, John Surratt, Danny Barrett Jr. and managing editor Paul Barry contributed to this story.