Progress made on lease agreements

There’s a path forward for rental agreements at Community Resource Center.

During a Portland Board of Works meeting Wednesday, the city and the tenants of the building at 118 S. Meridian St., Portland, came to an informal agreement on how to move forward with the contract to rent space in the building and a separate agreement for sharing utilities and other costs between the tenants.

The meeting was called specifically to deal with the lease agreements after issues surfaced late last year when they were updated, including the county becoming a new tenant for an office for the community coordinator. The county’s lease was different from those of the other tenants (Jay County Chamber of Commerce, Jay County Development Corporation, Jay/Portland Building and Planning and Jay County Visitors and Tourism Bureau), as it did not include utilities. As a result, Jay County Development Corporation, which currently receives and pays the utility bills and then is reimbursed by the other tenants, was not being reimbursed.

Addressing the leases Wednesday, Jay County Development Corporation executive director Travis Richards raised the utility issue, saying his organization is no longer interested in being in control of the utility bills. He suggested that the city take over utilities and charge the tenants via monthly bills or increased rent.

Richards also brought up responsibility for maintenance.

In practice, the City of Portland, which owns the building, had been paying for major maintenance such as the recent replacement of a water heater but the lease agreement referred to maintenance as a tenant responsibility. (The leases were originally drawn up nearly 20 years ago and had been renewing automatically on an annual basis.)

Portland clerk-treasurer Lori Phillips said she is not interested in having the city take over utilities. Mary Adair, director of the visitors and tourism bureau, later said her organization would be willing to take over the billing.

After some continued discussion about both rent and utilities, Jay/Portland Building and Planning director John Hemmelgarn suggested simplifying the lease terms to split costs among the five tenants.

Further discussion led to the tenants agreeing in principle to the following:

•Monthly rent of $350

•One-year leases to be reviewed annually with a target start date of July 1

•The city covering maintenance for permanent structures such as heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical, the parking lot, etc.

•The tenants being responsible for utilities and the cost of other shared items such as bathroom and cleaning supplies

The automatic annual renewal will be eliminated and 90-days notice will be required to terminate a lease.

City attorney Wes Schemenaur suggested a separate agreement to handle how the utilities are split between the tenants. It will call for the tenants present in a given month to split the costs equally. (Currently, there are five tenants. If one leaves, the costs would be split evenly between those who remain.)

Schemenaur said he would work on updating both the lease agreement and the utility agreement between the tenants and send it to the appropriate parties for their review.