The old Verhine Building at 1015 Adams St. has been declared a menace and a threat to public’s health and safety of the community.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen Friday took action against the county-owned building during a discussion of other derelict buildings in the city. The board’s action opens the way for the Warren County Board of Supervisors to once again apply to the city’s Board of Architectural Review to raze the building.

But supervisors President Richard George said county is waiting for written confirmation of the board’s action before taking any action.

“They put their red sign in front of the building telling what they intended to do, and apparently they carried out their action, but we’ve received no official notice from the city. There’s no decision to take the building down at that time,” he said. He added the board will reconvene a recessed meeting June 30.

The supervisors in 2014 petitioned the Architectural Review Board to take the Verhine Building and another building south of it down, but the board put a stay on the petition because both were in a historic district. The building has been up for sale since 2015.

City Attorney Nancy Thomas said the information for the Board of Mayor and Aldermen’s decision was based on a report from city Community Development Director Victor Grey-Lewis, “Who did inspect the building and determined it was a safety hazard because part of the roof is collapsed, part of it has fallen and his concern is it’s going to collapse” and threaten the property on the building’s north side.

Vicksburg has a provision in the city code that allows the demolition of buildings in a historic district if they represent a menace to the public’s health and safety.

The board’s decision was questioned by members of the Heritage Guild of Vicksburg and Warren County.

“The board of supervisors has owned this building since the beginning of the 21st Century and they’ve done nothing to it,” said guild member Lamar McNally, who added he was concerned about incidents of demolition by neglect to older buildings in the city.

Demolition by neglect is allowing a building to destroy itself by not taking care of it.

“The ordinance says if you buy something in the historic district, you’ve got to take care of it,” McNally said. “The county Board of Supervisors may be in violation right now of the ordinances.”

He said the board needed to begin enforcing the ordinance, adding the board needed to do punish the supervisors for letting the building deteriorate.

Thomas said the city could sue the county to try and enforce the ordinance, “But you’re still talking about another taxing entity that has discretion on how to spend their tax dollars,” adding the supervisors declined to spend money on the building.

She said the city’s demolition by neglect ordinance is difficult, “Because it requires the city, using city tax dollars, to go in and fix up somebody else’s private property. You’re not only talking about enforcing the ordinance, but you’re talking about some sort of court action, because the city just can’t go up in your house because you decide not to put roof on it.”

Thomas said prior boards through the years have decided not to go on county property and fix the property, adding if the city did work on county property, it could not put a lien on the property because the county does not pay city taxes.

“What we have on our hands is a matter of safety,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “Do we continue to wrestle with this historic piece of property being dilapidated and run the risk of somebody getting hurt?”

If the building is demolished, Flaggs said, the county would pay for it.

The Verhine Building has been in disrepair since the county bought it in 2002, and city and county officials have debated by city and county officials since the Warren County Board of Supervisors first sought to raze the building in 2004. At that time, the supervisors wanted to demolish the Verhine Building and the adjacent old Justice Court Building.

The Board of Architectural Review denied the county’s request because they are in the city’s Grove Street-Jackson Street National Register Historic District and protected under the city’s historic preservation ordinance. The members urged the county to renovate the buildings.