Backing off the appearance of legal action, Warren County supervisors on Monday kept the ball in play on the issue of the old justice court building and a neighboring structure on Adams Street by deciding to appeal the city’s latest rejection to demolishing the edifices.

Their decision to appeal came six days after the Vicksburg Board of Architectural Review rejected an application raze the former court site and a long-vacated former law office. Each is inside the city’s historic preservation district, where alterations to homes and businesses are subject to the panel’s oversight. It was the review board’s second such rejection in six months. The current application is the fourth in 10 years.

It also came after about a half-hour in closed session after supervisors deemed the topic one of potential legal action. Mayor George Flaggs Jr. earlier this year said he would not rule out legal action to preserve the properties.

County attorney Marcie Southerland told supervisors she had argued to the review board the corner of Adams and Grove streets, now a parking area beside the old court building, is evidence of some form of demotion anyway.

“There was obviously a building there at some point,” Southerland said.

The county’s former justice court building at 1019 Adams St. was completed in the 1870s as a house and was once the law office of John Prewitt before he became a circuit judge. The county bought the building in 1984, to be home to its three justice court districts. The judges were moved to 921 Farmer St. in 2002, and the building essentially became a storage bin.

Known as the “old Verhine building,” the house at 1015 Adams St. was built in the 1890s and was home to Verhine & Verhine law firm from 1991 to 2002, according to city directories. The county purchased it after the firm moved next door.

No specific use or plan beyond extra parking for the courthouse, county jail and government annex across the street has ever been specified.

In September, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History informed the county the Verhine building is a contributing resource to the National Historic Register District and eligible for designation as a Mississippi Landmark. Archives and History lists the old justice court building as a non-contributing resource to the same national district.

Board President Bill Lauderdale said he felt good about the county’s case.

“I’d like to see taxpayers’ money going somewhere besides these buildings,” Lauderdale said.

On the agenda

Meeting Monday, the Warren County Board of Supervisors:

• Voided tax sales of 67 properties that were found to have been included in the August sale by mistake.

The action meant refunds totaling $7,745.63 to investors who had bid on the properties.

Findings by the state Department of Revenue, Tax Collector’s Office and Chancery Clerk’s Office after this year’s sale showed the mix of vacant and occupied residential properties had actually become property of the state through the 2010 tax year.

Tax Collector Antonia Flaggs Jones said they were incorrectly identified on the 2013 tax roll provided by the Tax Assessor’s Office.

• Ratified a six-month extension of Kinder Morgan’s lease to operate unloading facilities at the Port of Vicksburg.

Terms call for the company’s yearly base rent to be halved, at $67,500, to reflect the six-month extension, which runs Jan. 1 through June 1, 2015. A 23-cent fee per net ton handled is tacked onto the deal.

• Approved a $100 full-page ad for the Elite Civic Club of Vicksburg, which is organizing a Vogue-Esquire Models of Chicago program Nov. 9 at City Auditorium.

• Accepted for information its letter to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality opposing renewal of a solid waste permit for the Ewell landfill off Jeff Davis Road.

•  Recognized Elmer Nielsen for 20 years service with the Road Department.