Discussion on Senior Center drifts to ‘other property’
During the discussion of the senior center purchasing agreement, Commissioner Tracy Wandell (Dist. 1) asked for Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank’s opinion of the purchase before voting on the motion.
In the finance committee meeting the prior week, Frank voted not to approve the resolution for the capital outlay note for the senior center and the Oak Ridge General Sessions Division II court.
Wandell said he learned of Frank’s dissenting vote in finance and wanted to know her reasons for voting against it.
Frank said she voted against approving the capital outlay note resolution “mainly because of the financing mechanism.”
“I didn’t have the numbers in front of me how that was going to be paid for,” Frank said.
The finance committee approved the capital outlay note resolution, despite Frank’s dissenting vote, and forwarded it to the full board of commission for recommendation. Commission voted unanimously at the commission meeting, May 15, to approve the capital outlay note.
Commission’s approval of the capital outlay note resolution authorizes the county to issue an interest bearing capital outlay note of up to $1.4M to finance the purchase of the Farley building for the senior center for $600,000, the renovations to the Daniel Arthur Building for the Oak Ridge Generals Sessions Division II court for $500,000, and longer term municipal projects like roof repairs for $300,000.
Frank expressed concerns about the capital outlay note being a package deal, specifically its wedding of the Farley building purchase with the general sessions court renovations. She argued these are two separate projects.
At the commission meeting this month, she explained to commissioners her reservations with each project in regards to funding.
Frank suggested that the county should try to purchase the Capiello building — the building owned by businessman Tony Capiello where the Oak Ridge courthouse is now located — because the county has already “put so much investment” into this building, said Frank.
She argued that financing the renovations to DARC would “marry us to more investment,” in the building and pointed out that DARC is “a much older building” than the building the county currently rents from Capiello.
Her concerns with the purchase of the Farley building for the senior center centered around using event booking as a revenue generator to keep the senior center operating.
“I don’t want to see the seniors in the business of doing events in order to make all of this work. The senior citizen center is to provide service for seniors. I don’t want to see them lose sight of their mission in trying to generate revenues,” Frank said.
Wandell asked Frank what her solution would be to utilizing event planning as a possible revenue generator.
She recommended the county agree to allow Farley to continue hosting events at the building on North Main Street and the county enter into a contract with him “to get a percentage from leasing the space for him to meet these obligations.”
“I do know they [the Anderson County senior center and office on aging] need more space, but again I don’t have all the details. A task force did this and I was not invited to the table to be a part of that,” explained Frank.
“You were not asked to go to the task force?” Wandell inquired.
“No, sir. I’ve never been invited to one of the meetings to see what’s going on about this, but I am communicative. I do talk to folks and I trust commission has looked at all of these issues,” replied Frank.
Frank stated an additional concern she has is the lease the senior center has at its current location.
According to Frank, the individual who is leasing the current senior center to the county is not willing to let the county out of the lease agreement.
“That is a monetary issue that would need to be looked at...that is an obligation we would need to take care of,” she said, referring to the lease situation.
The money from event bookings would be “money” the seniors could use for additional services, replied McKamey.
“The seniors won’t be strapped with work on the events. There’s already events booked through September,” he pointed out.
He also said Cherie Phillips, director of the senior center and Anderson County Office on Aging, is looking into possibly hiring an event coordinator to handle the event bookings.
“We can hire an event planner on a commission basis to handle the events,” stated Phillips.
“I believe in this. That is why I work as hard as I do,” Phillips said.