Proposed lease agreement with Jacob’s Well doesn’t appease some townspeople

Clark County

Discussion

September 14, 2012

Proposed lease agreement with Jacob’s Well doesn’t appease some townspeople

By JEROD CLAPP jerod.clapp@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Fri Sep 14, 2012, 08:08 AM EDT

UTICA — Rather than pursue the deed for the property, the board for Jacob’s Well will only seek an extended lease for the old Utica Elementary School, the township trustee said Thursday.

John Durbin, Utica township trustee, said he thinks the tentative agreement with the charity will appease townspeople who didn’t want to give up the school and the charity that wants to repurpose it. He said the organization’s attorney, David Lewis, will have a draft of the lease ready for the public to review before he signs it in about a week.

“I just said to get rid of the fight, let’s look at making the lease a little bit tighter and forget the deed,” Durbin said. “Let’s not raise any flags we don’t need to raise.”

But some of the flags may remain waving.

Angel Jackson, Utica town board member, said she doesn’t think the extended lease will keep people opposed to deeding over the property happy — more than 200 of them.

She said the 10-year lease — which included automatic five year extensions — originally signed by the organization was more than generous and would have given Jacob’s Well an opportunity to prove themselves as successful counselors for women in crisis. She said the 25-year lease might as well be a deed.

“I think everybody was quite happy with [the 10-year lease], nobody raised an issue with that or complained, there were no problems with that,” Jackson said. “All this controversy sparked up when they wanted the deed. I think the honorable thing to have done would have been to stuck by the lease they signed.”

Ann Graham — a concerned resident who has spearheaded a campaign against deeding the property over — said trust issues continue to hang over the heads of the townspeople and the extended lease isn’t going alleviate their concerns.

“They keep telling us they’re going to do one thing, but they do the exact opposite,” Graham said. “The community should have been included in those meetings when they’ve talked about what they were going to do with that building and they didn’t include us.”

The board for Jacob’s Well met privately earlier this week to determine how they would pursue the property, but haven’t shared their decision with the town yet.

Graham said some of the statements made by Kevin Williar, co-founder of the charity, at Greater Clark County Schools board meetings have been conflicting, including saying the facility would not be a home for battered women.

Williar did not return phone calls for comment by press time.

Durbin said since Jacob’s Well was willing to bend on the terms of the property, he thought the township could return the gesture by giving in a little.

“We’re keeping the deed and that’s what [the townspeople] said all along — they’re not against Jacob’s Well, they’re against deeding the building out to Jacob’s Well,” Durbin said.

The charity has brought up the amount of money they’ve already invested into the property as a concern on their end and that they would have done so in vain if they’re run out of the school.

Jackson said the concerns raised by the charity about the $300,000 in renovations they’ve invested is a moot point because they knew going into the initial lease that they’d lose those renovations to the township if they weren’t reapproved for another term.

“That’s a very generous offer to any nonprofit that you’re getting a $1 a year lease,” Jackson said. “They walked into that with their eyes wide open. The lease clearly said anything they put into the building, they wouldn’t be able to take with them.”

Graham said she has support of the town board on keeping the charity from getting the deed, but she also doesn’t think they’ll be happy with the lease terms they’re proposing.

“Four board members signed off on them not getting the deed,” Graham said. “[Jacob’s Well hasn’t] been up front with them, either. They have caused a big mistrust and a lot of tension in that small town up there. If they were so Christian, they’d have fixed this. Nobody said throw them out, they said honor the lease they have and don’t change our building.”

Durbin said he didn’t have a date nailed down to present the lease to the public, but will once it’s been drafted.