County votes down new lease for labor group

FAVORITISM?

I think we need to look at what’s in the best interest of the taxpayer and not what is in the best interest of the tenant. To settle for a $20 per month possible profit…is showing strong favoritism to the tenant and short changing the property taxpayer.”

Chuck Holmes, Lee County Supervisor

LEE COUNTY – The Labor Union office space currently located in the upstairs space above the Newberry Center in downtown Fort Madison got an eviction notice of sorts Monday.
The Lee County Board of Supervisors considered a lease for $500 a month plus the cost of property taxes applicable to the square footage of the upstairs office space, and interior maintenance costs, as part of their regular meeting Monday morning.
However, the motion to approve the lease and offer it to unions to consider was voted down by supervisors 3-2 with Ron Fedler and Matt Pflug, both Democrats, voting against the lease, along with Chuck Holmes, a Republican. Garry Seyb and Tom Schulz voted in favor of the new lease. And for good measure, they voted it down twice.
After realizing that now the union was facing to have to vacate the premises, Pflug, as part of the majority vote, offered a motion to have the vote reconsidered. On a second vote on the lease, Pflug again voted no as did Fedler and Holmes and the proposed lease failed again.
Fedler and Pflug cast their ballots because they opposed the increase in rent to the union, Holmes said the new rent amount doesn’t go far enough to release the county from the optics of supplementing the union’s rental fees.
Holmes said the rent should be set at $891 a month to include all utilities and costs that the county incurs owning the property. He went so far as to label the proposed lease illegal. A recent report of the state auditor’s office, along with an interpretation from Lee County Attorney Ross Braden, indicates the county must make a profit on rentals and must make property tax payments on any space they receive payments for.
Braden crafted the lease at the request of supervisors.
"I think we need to look at what’s in the best interest of the taxpayer and not what is in the best interest of the tenant. To settle for a $20 per month possible profit…is showing strong favoritism to the tenant and short-changing the property taxpayer,” Holmes said.
Penny Logsdon, representing the labor conglomerate that utilizes the space, challenged supervisors again on their calculations and said the group has performed their own maintenance, is paying a fair price for the space, and is made up of Lee County residents and taxpayers.
“We are the taxpayers,” she told Holmes.
Holmes said a reasonable rate of return for the county should be 5% on the costs which gave him the $891 figure including inflation.
Lee County Attorney Ross Braden said supervisors could, in theory, submit another lease proposal to the labor organization, but Seyb said that would only increase the cost to the tenant.
“If they don’t come up with  a lease that will be acceptable to both parties, then the tenant will have to vacate,” Braden said.
The current lease agreement, which is expired, only allowed for annual extensions, not month-to-month extensions, so it expired on Aug. 31. When the lease agreement was valid, it provided for a 90-day out from either party with written notice.
Seyb said after the meeting it was his understanding that with the vote that was taken defeating the proposed new lease agreement it would appear that the labor group would have to vacate the space. He agreed that a new proposal could be offered, but said the board already voted down a bare minimum increase that fit the legal requirements the county was up against, so he’s not sure what other agreement could be proposed.