{"id":5962,"date":"2013-10-08T17:16:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T21:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=5962"},"modified":"2013-10-09T16:33:28","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T20:33:28","slug":"no-contracts-for-tenants-of-leila-ellis-building-lcc-2013-10-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/no-contracts-for-tenants-of-leila-ellis-building-lcc-2013-10-07.html","title":{"rendered":"No contracts for tenants of Leila Ellis Building @ LCC 2013-10-07"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OJpBlUyoZ8Y\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.ytimg.com\/vi\/OJpBlUyoZ8Y\/default.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\nTwo, four, six, many:<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s how Lowndes County counts tenants.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s great the county is providing space for organizations<br \/>\nthat help the needy,<br \/>\nbut it&#8217;s kind of curious that the county didn&#8217;t seem to know<br \/>\nwho or how many organizations were using the Leila Ellis building,<br \/>\nand had no lease agreement with them.<br \/>\nNot to mention it took twenty questions from Commissioners to get<br \/>\nstaff to admit that lack of contracts,<br \/>\nat Monday morning&#8217;s<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/rotating-vice-chairmanship-lcc-2013-10-07.html\"><br \/>\nLowndes County Commission Work Session<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n6.b. Leila Ellis Building-Available Space\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nKind of like they have<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/no-contract-and-no-bids-for-county-attorney-yet-20-raise-to-300000.html\"><br \/>\nno contract with the alleged county attorney<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\nChad McCleod at one point said<br \/>\ntwo organizations are currently in the building,<br \/>\nLAMP and Cash Prosperity.<br \/>\nHe said the County let LAMP use it, and LAMP let Cash Prosperity use it.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn response to a question from Commissioner DeMarcus Marshall,<br \/>\nCounty Manager Joe Pritchard said under normal circumstances<br \/>\nany organization would need to come to the Commission to ask for space.<br \/>\nThey currently have more applicants than space.<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Crawford Powell wanted to know if the county was going<br \/>\nto set up guidelines for who could lease.<br \/>\nPritchard said they could, and they couldn&#8217;t lease to a private business.<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Richard Raines wanted to know if annual leases were the practice<br \/>\nof this board.<br \/>\nPritchard, not actually answering the question asked,<br \/>\nsaid &#8220;That would be my suggestion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cashpc\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"https:\/\/fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net\/hprofile-ak-ash3\/s160x160\/274065_100002700360412_3437483_n.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cashpc\"><br \/>\nJoTaryla Thomas<\/a><br \/>\ncame up to speak for<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.doitwithcash.org\/\"><br \/>\nCash Prosperity Campaign<\/a>,<br \/>\nsaying she&#8217;d been in the building for six years,<br \/>\nand her organization provides (&#8220;we partner with the Internal Revenue Service&#8221;)<br \/>\nfree income tax preparation, free housing counseling, and other<br \/>\nfinancial services, including classes.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Joyce Evans asked Chad McCleod to explain how the<br \/>\nentire building was used.<br \/>\nHis explanation included<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n&#8220;using 5,438 square feet is the Southeast Health Clinic&#8221;,<\/p>\n<li>\n&#8220;1,295 feet is being used by the Homeless Coalition&#8221;,\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nand some common area.<br \/>\nDoesn&#8217;t that add up to four tenants, not two?\n<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Marshall wanted to know when leases might start.<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Powell pointed out a soup kitchen was using part of the<br \/>\nbuilding.<br \/>\nMcCleod said that was in a separate building, &#8220;also the resource training<br \/>\ncenter, which was part of what LAMP and NCNW was looking at&#8221; is in the old library.<br \/>\nSo we&#8217;re up to six tenants, not two.<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Evans<br \/>\nmade some explanation that I can&#8217;t make out with the sound<br \/>\nThe county&#8217;s sound feed was out again, so we were making do with the<br \/>\ncamera&#8217;s microphone from<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/exclusive-franchise-on-photographing-county-commission-lcc-2013-05-28.html\"><br \/>\nbill of attainer corner in the back corner of the building<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Marshall wanted to know,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nIn the past did we just write it off for tax purposes or what have you<br \/>\nversus charging.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nSomeone (Chairman Slaughter?) said basically yes, for those who hadn&#8217;t<br \/>\npaid the rent that was owed.<\/p>\n<p>\nCommissioner Page wanted to know if they could collect back rent.<br \/>\nAnswer: not really; none of the organizations have any spare money.<\/p>\n<p>\nPage then wanted to know if 30 or 60 day eviction notices would be<br \/>\nimplemented in the future.<br \/>\nCounty Manager Joe Pritchard said that would be established in the lease<br \/>\nagreement.<\/p>\n<p>\nPage wanted to know if that was in the former lease agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\nPritchard&#8217;s answer:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nWe did not have an agreement.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nChairman Slaughter leapt in to say they were just trying to clean<br \/>\nup the situation and make enough in the future to pay for maintenance<br \/>\non the building.<\/p>\n<p>\nWhich is all fine and good, and it&#8217;s great that the county<br \/>\nis providing space for what sounds like worthy services.<br \/>\nBut this is all curious lack of accounting from a county<br \/>\nthat repeatedly said it was so concerned about<br \/>\nhow much solid waste collection was costing it,<br \/>\nyet<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/vdt-should-dig-deeper-into-county-trash.html\"><br \/>\nnever produced a public accounting<\/a>,<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/tipping-fees-no-contract-no-list-of-fees-no-details-of-expenses.html\"><br \/>\nwon&#8217;t produce a contract with the landfill<\/a>,<br \/>\nnor an accounting for what the host or tipping fees from the landfill<br \/>\nwere used for.<\/p>\n<p>\nSo that&#8217;s no contracts with Leila Ellis building tenants,<br \/>\nno contract (that the county would produce) with the landfill,<br \/>\nno contract with the alleged county attorney,<br \/>\nbut remember now<br \/>\nthey do have<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/exclusive-franchise-for-solid-waste-collection-services-lcc-2012-12-11.html\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;border:none;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/govt\/loco\/waste\/2012-12-11--ads-contract\/small\/20130609_143257.jpg\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/exclusive-franchise-for-solid-waste-collection-services-lcc-2012-12-11.html\"><br \/>\nan exclusive franchise<\/a><br \/>\nfor solid waste collection with a company owned by investors in New York City,<br \/>\nand they&#8217;re spending our tax dollars on the alleged county attorney to<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/cash-for-trash-deep-south-sanitation.html\">sue a local company<\/a> for continuing to do business under a license<br \/>\nthey gave the owner.<\/p>\n<p>\nSomebody remind me:<br \/>\nwho does the Lowndes County Commission represent?<br \/>\nAnd how would we know with such sloppy accounting?\n<\/p>\n<p>\nHere&#8217;s<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OJpBlUyoZ8Y\"><br \/>\nthe video:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;font-size:80%\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OJpBlUyoZ8Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>\nNo contracts for tenants of Leila Ellis Building<br \/>\n<br \/>\nWork Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),<br \/>\n<br \/>\nVideo by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),<br \/>\n<br \/>\nValdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 October 2013.\n<\/p>\n<p><p>\n -jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two, four, six, many: that&#8217;s how Lowndes County counts tenants. It&#8217;s great the county is providing space for organizations that help the needy, but it&#8217;s kind of curious that the county didn&#8217;t seem to know who or how many organizations were using the Leila Ellis building, and had no lease agreement with them. Not to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2,20,88,478,3,479],"tags":[7011,619,7030,773,8704,6279,8701,8699,10,136,7029,8702,7014,154,8710,91,256,7012,12,7,8734,8772,8700,8773,6,618,6650,90],"class_list":["post-5962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-government","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-solid-waste","category-transparency","category-trash","tag-7-october-2013","tag-ads","tag-cash-prosperity-campaign","tag-deep-south-sanitation","tag-economy","tag-exclusive-franchise","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-joe-pritchard","tag-jotaryla-thomas","tag-lake","tag-lamp","tag-landfill","tag-law","tag-lcc","tag-lease","tag-leila-ellis","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-solid-waste","tag-transparency","tag-trash","tag-valdosta","tag-veolia","tag-walter-g-elliott","tag-work-session"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5962"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5966,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions\/5966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}