It may be too early for some people to take notice, but Panola County government has begun a new era.

A new county administrator, Kelley Magee, now oversees that office, possibly the most important in the county, replacing retiring David Chandler.

Chandler’s retirement, which officially came at the end of September, coincides with the August 8 death of four-term Supervisor Robert Avant. Both admirers and critics of Chandler and Avant can agree that the savvy pair influenced Panola County for two decades; their reach stretched from the county board room to school boards and mayoral offices.

But Chandler’s retirement and Avant’s death caused the political landscape to change overnight. 

So, what happens next?

As Sherlock Holmes would say, “The game is afoot.”

The first chess piece moved when Panola supervisors lured Magee, a Panola County native, from Lafayette County government.

In their second move, supervisors promoted their vice president, Gary Thompson, into the board president’s post.

Progress can be made in the next three years, but supervisors will only progress through thoughtful planning, wise budgeting and cooperation with other government entities. Planning and cooperation is essential for sustained growth and new opportunities for Panola Countians.

Without advice from Chandler and direction from Avant, there is an obvious need for vision and leadership from our county government that must soon be filled.

To get supervisors and their constituents thinking and talking, The Panolian’s editorial page is championing some ideas in coming weeks that we believe improve our community and quality of life.

Some of those ideas include:

•Pursue an agreement with Northwest Community College that would bring a small but active satellite campus to Batesville. A good start toward that goal would be finding a location, such as office space in a shopping center, to hold prerequisite night classes during the week.

•Adopt the International Building Code for new homes in Panola County. The county’s land commission has already done much of the legwork on this issue, but supervisors have the final say-so.

•Honor the verbal commitment to post job openings. Supervisors verbally agreed to post job openings at the county courthouses in Batesville and Sardis.  A board order was never issued, which technically means the matter was never officially acted on. Make it official, and start posting jobs for the public to see.

•Revisit the junk car ordinance. Some supervisors may be surprised to learn that Panola County currently has a “seven-car rule,”  an embarrassing compromise allowed by a previous board. It should become the “zero-car rule” in order to protect property owners, who care about the value of their land, from those who do not.

Whatever our supervisors decide to do, we hope they sit down together – the sooner the better – and talk, debate and discuss our future. Describe their individual visions for where they want to see Panola County progress in five years, and then put pen to paper to make it happen.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” said the writer of Proverbs.

Panola County is alive and well, but it should be a thriving community, not just a surviving one.

There is much work that needs to be done to get us there.