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Bay’s missing minutes still state property
By LESLIE WILLIAMS
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s Board of Trustees will determine at its next meeting whether to return Bay St. Louis minute books from Jan. 4, 1858 to May 2, 1903 and August 5, 1916 to August 6, 1956.
Bay St. Louis Mayor Larry Bennett was in Jackson Friday with a request that department officials return the minute books.
Director Elbert Hillard and Ronald Tomlin, both of the Archives Department, told Bennett he would have to send a letter to the department’s Board of Trustees requesting return of the minutes, the mayor said.
The Board would then act on Bennett’s request at its next meeting, said Bennett.
The 13 volumes of hand written
minutes were presented by two former Bay officials May 24, 1977 to the Department of Archives as an unrestricted gift, transferring the legal title, copyright, and literary property rights to the state agency.
The officials were former Bay St. Louis Mayor Warren Carver and City Clerk Lucien Kidd.
A stipulation in the 1977 agreement between the former Bay officials and the state department called for a
microfilm copy to be submitted to the city.
The City-County Library in Bay St. Louis has a microfilm copy.
The mayor reports he has been told the copy, “is not comfortable to use.”
Bennett explains the minutes are valuable because significant historical information can be obtained from the 13 volumes.