County to raise rent on MTNA

The county’s Building and Grounds Committee spent the majority of its most recent meeting dealing with the leases on the offices in the County Administration Building on Locust Street.
While committee members tried to keep the leases as reasonable as possible, rising energy costs forced them to raise some prices. Committee chairman Carl Bouldin presented the leases to the committee for discussion, particularly in light of the fact that all utilities, other than phone, are included in the rent since the offices aren’t metered separately.
‘First we have the MTNA lease, the Middle Tennessee Nursery Association,’ said Bouldin. ‘We charge them $350 per month, so the lease right now is $4,200 per year. Does the committee want to keep it at that, or with the price of electricity going up, do we want to raise it’?
Michael Martin pointed out MTNA has also asked to increase the duration of its lease.
‘They’re asking for a three-year lease,’ Martin said, noting a figure of $400 had been presented to the organization at one point. ‘But we had already told them $350, so we left it at that and then we would raise it up the next year.’
‘I was the one that discussed that with them,’ Bouldin said, ‘They agreed to pay the $400 for the electricity and water and other cost increases. It’s just up to the committee how much you want to raise it. I know, and they know too, all these people know, that electricity is going to go up, it’s definitely going to go up, so we need to raise it some.’
‘Nobody wants to put them out of business,’ Martin said. ‘I’ll just throw this out. We go up to $450 this year, with the option to look at it again next year depending on our costs.’
Bouldin said that looked reasonable.
Commissioner Clinton Hill then made a motion to increase the rent by $75.
‘I make a motion we start out at $425,’ Hill said.
‘And that’s for a three-year lease,’ said Commissioner Bessie Smithson, ‘where we can look at it again each year.’
The two other leases discussed, Families in Crisis, and Opportunities, Inc., involved no change.
‘Families in Crisis uses offices here to talk to clients,’ Bouldin said. ‘And they agreed to rent off $8,600 a year as an in-kind contribution. It’s money the county was giving them each year, and now we just give them the use of the offices. That’s what they wanted to do. It’s a pretty good deal I think for both parties.’
The committee voted to retain this agreement for another year.
Opportunities Inc., which leases space in the election room for activities held four times a month, currently pays $175 per month. The group had relinquished a building next to the Warren County Ambulance station on Magness Drive last year to provide space to expand the offices there. The group agreed to move to the administration building and to the $175 rent.
‘I make a motion we leave that the same,’ said Smithson. ‘They were real nice about letting us have that building for the ambulance service.’
All of the lease agreements will have to go before the full Warren County Commission for approval before they become final.
Bouldin also reported the county environmental officer, who was originally set up in a hallway on the upper floor, now has a private office.
‘Tommy Savage has now got an office,’ Bouldin said. ‘They moved some things around and he has one of those offices upstairs.’
Previously Savage had to lock up his supplies and equipment in filing cabinets, and was reluctant to get a computer since there was no place to store it securely.