By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The City of Grayson held a special meeting last Thursday, April 24, to discuss a possible lease agreement with Member’s Choice Credit Union (MCCU). The agreement would provide space to house city government offices during a potential renovation of the Grayson City Building, in order to prevent interruptions to city businesses.
The city council also discussed their KCL Unemployment dividend, pricing from Enterprise Rental, and a future workshop to consider the city’s budget for the coming year.
City clerk Dawnita Lewis also announced to the council that in July she will be the City of Grayson’s first ever Certified Municipal Clerk. Lewis will graduate with the certification in July, and the council and the mayor congratulated her on the accomplishment.
Mayor Troy Combs spoke to the council concerning the potential lease of offices at the Member’s Choice location in Grayson, and said that he had been negotiating said proposed lease in anticipation of future need. Combs also said that he would not move toward finalizing the lease until the council thought that such a lease would be worthwhile and beneficial.
“But I am all about weighing our options and giving the council the best options we have,” Combs said. “We are trying to make our city better and our facilities better,” he told the council. “And so, I have negotiated on behalf of the city a rate of $1,500 per month, should we want to rent from Member’s Choice Credit Union.”
The original proposed lease was for the amount of $3,000.
“It is a new space and a lot of square footage,” Combs told the council.
He had made a conditional offer to MCCU for the $1,500 amount, he said, and was asked if a $2,000 lease would be acceptable.
“I told them with utilities and other expenses I did not believe we would do that,” Combs said. Member’s Choice then authorized the $1,500 monthly lease payment.
Combs explained that the lease would be necessary if the council decided upon renovations to the existing building, so that city employees and customers would not be forced to continue operations on site while experiencing the dirt, noise, and potential health risks that the renovations would entail. “We would need a different administrative space, though I suppose you could work from a single room while renovations are being done on other parts of the building,” Combs told the council. “But it would be difficult.”
Several council members voiced opinions that an engineer should be called in to assess exactly what repairs should be made before agreeing to a lease. Current known issues include replacing the flooring in two rooms in the city building, as well as some work needing to be done on the second floor of the building. No decision was made during the meeting.
In a related item on the agenda, Combs informed the council that there was $12,000 in a KLC Unemployment account at Member’s Choice Credit Union. Combined with the dividend of $6,000 on the account, the total worth of the account would be $18,000. Combs told the council that those funds would come close to covering the rental of the MCCU administrative space should the council decide to use those funds for that purpose.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
