The Mississippi Supreme Court has agreed to hear Leflore County's appeal in the Gold Kist case.
The court, in a 6-1 decision released Thursday, said it will consider Leflore County's request to deny the effort of two private citizens to continue the long-running legal dispute.
Judge Oliver Diaz didn't participate. The court didn't release any opinion with its decision.
In December 2005, the county's attorney, Willie Perkins Sr., filed legal pleadings asking the Supreme Court to hear the case.
Perkins couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. Robert Moore, president of the Leflore County Board of Supervisors, referred questions about the decision to Perkins.
In late November, the Mississippi Court of Appeals said Jack Hayes and George S. Whitten Sr. could intervene in a 7-year-old lawsuit that challenges supervisors' action.
George Whitten Jr., a Jackson attorney representing his father and Hayes, said Thursday that he had asked for review by the Supreme Court as well.
"The Court of Appeals' opinion is not as clear as it should be," he said.
It's uncertain what the Supreme Court will expect of the two parties. Generally the court asks for both sides to file legal arguments called briefs and, sometimes, to present oral arguments.
Those instructions will come later, Whitten said.
At issue is a longtime dispute over the Board of Supervisors' approval of a railroad spur, tax exemption and other incentives for Gold Kist fertilizer company to move a distribution center from the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Park to Rising Sun. Gold Kist later sold its Greenwood operation, and the rail spur was never constructed.
Supervisors Phil Wolfe had initially filed the lawsuit in 1998 against fellow county board members to force the board to correct its minutes from 1995. He claimed that the supervisors never voted on the issue.
Hayes and Whitten filed a motion to intervene three years after the initial lawsuit was filed. In their motion in 2001, Hayes and Whitten used an unedited video of a Nov. 14, 1995, meeting as proof that the minutes called into question are inaccurate.
The video was recorded by Taxpayers for Good Government, which at one time operated The Taxpayers Channel.
The court's action comes less than three months after the Court of Appeals said Whitten and Hayes could intervene in the lawsuit. This reaffirmed a major decision issued by the Court of Appeals on Aug. 9.
Although Gold Kist and the supervisors never proceeded with the deal, the minutes need correcting, the two men contended.
