Fire department lease is point of contention

BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

INEZ — Fireworks erupted in the Inez City meeting Thursday over the Inez Volunteer Fire Department stipulation in a proposed lease restricting the city from holding “any type of meeting on Thursday night” unless it is a special meeting. The fire department lease also would require the city to pay half the natural gas bill on the 8,000-square-foot fire station where the city rents office space.

Mayor Ed Daniels presented the Inez Commission with a lease renewal for May 2022 through April 2023 during Thursday’s meeting.

“The rent is the same,” Daniels said. “And I’ve been told that it will be paid.”

Daniels asked commissioners to look at No. 7 on the lease.

“Lessee shall be responsible for all utility bills, including water, gas, internet, electricity, water, sewer and telephone,” Daniels read.

“They have not been giving us the gas bill,” added Daniels. “They’ve just been going ahead and paying it, the fire department has. But from what I understand, we will be receiving one.”

Commissioner Terry Fraley asked why the city would start receiving a gas bill now.

“Because that’s the way the lease is written,” said Daniels. “It’s always been written that way.”

“Well, let’s discuss it,” Fraley said.

Daniels said the city had not received a gas bill for two and one-half years.

“They’ve just been going ahead and paying it, but now they want the money,” said the mayor.

Commissioner Richie Wells asked how much the gas bill runs.

Daniels said the bill would run higher during the winter months, but he did not have a figure.

“We were supposed to pay one-half of the gas bill,” stated Daniels. “What gas we use here is for our heat in the winter.”

“That’s it?” asked Wells.

“So we’re going to pay half of theirs – whatever the whole building is?” Commissioner Dennis Hall asked. “We’re kind of getting the bad end of the stick.”

“We’ve not gotten the bad end of the stick for the last two and one-half years,” replied Daniels.

“No, unless they come and say, ‘You owe this much,’” said Daniels.

Daniels said there is only one gas meter for the building in which the city rents about 2,000 square feet.

Hall suggested the city should pay a percentage of the bill equivalent to the size of the space.

On the topic of meetings on Thursday, Hall said, “That’s something new.”

“Thursday night is the only night we’ve ever had them,” said Wells.

Fraley said he would not agree with that item in the lease.

“I don’t think they should dictate when we have our meetings,” said Fraley. “We don’t dictate when they have their meetings. They don’t have a right to tell us when we can have our meetings or cannot have our meetings. They have no jurisdiction over us.”

Hall voiced his disagreement with having only two parking spaces during regular business hours.

“If they can change things, we can change things,” said Hall.

“We can counter,” said Fraley.

“They park in front of our garage door and block us in,” said Hall. “They do it all the time.”

“If we agree, as a commission, not to park in the parking lot on Thursday nights, they will let us hold the meetings,” said Daniels.

“They can’t stop us from having our meetings on Thursday night,” stated Fraley.

“They can stop us from parking,” said Daniels.

Fraley said he did not care to walk across the road.

“They aren’t going to tell me that we can’t have our meeting,” he said.

“Hey Terry, wait just a minute,” Daniels said.

“You wait a minute,” said Fraley. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking.”

“You interrupted me, buddy,” said Daniels.

At that point, Fraley left the meeting.

In other business:

• Daniels stated that safe drinking water is one of the community’s biggest needs, and he has repeatedly asked the Martin County Water District Board to publish water testing results.

“They were supposed to send that to the newspaper,” Daniels said. “And I keep telling them, if they don’t want to publish things, they’re not going to gain credibility with the people. It’s something that they really need to do.”

• Daniels announced the city would receive another $49,000 in ARPA funding near the end of June or the first of July.

“Once we get that, we should have $91,164.56 in the ARPA money,” he said. “We’ve already spent about $8,900.”

• The mayor said the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 12 informed him that Route 40 in city limits would get new asphalt before September.