Community complex agreement concerns voiced at council meeting

During the Basin Town Council meeting on Feb. 13, one agenda item was the use agreement for the community complex.  

Councilman Chuck Hopkin said the agreement was discussed at the last rec board meeting. He said two school board representatives on the rec board were going to take it back to the school for discussion.  Any changes would be brought to the next Rec Board meeting. 

Town Attorney Kent Richins said he wants the maintenance issues addressed clearly in terms of who maintains what, when, etc.  “This has been an oddball agreement between three parties,” he said. “We own it, we let the recreation district use it, and they let the school use it. We originally asked the school to enter into an agreement with the recreation district. But I don’t think they wanted to go that route.” 

Hopkin confirmed this was the case. “They want to keep the town in with them.” He added that maintenance responsibilities were discussed at the rec meeting.

Mayor CJ Duncan said, “Basically they want the Town of Basin to pay all the utilities. They want the town of Basin to pay all maintenance. Number 3, the school district does not have a fee for any of the use of the complex. I have a huge issue with that. They don’t want to pay ... yet, they want the town to pay for everything else.

“And it is the same issue. The taxpayer in Basin should not have to pay for the school stuff. If we want to cooperate and work together, I’m all for it.
But I don’t think the Town of Basin should take the brunt of it.” 

Hopkin replied, “Keep in mind, we talked about that, maintenance and everything on there. This is the original agreement (between the town and district) and this is where we are starting. It was presented to the school and explained that we needed to even things up. Get them paying more. This is just the start of it.” 

Richins added that he believes one of the bigger issues is maintenance. “Where you draw the line on what the town should be maintaining and what it should not. The day to day and all the regular wear and tear, I think, should be on them. But if we are coming up with a main utility issue, heating, air conditioning, that might fall on us. But that is the conversation because we own the building.” 

He continued that the town had requested that the school work with just the rec district but the school wants the town to be part of the agreement. The school needs to work with the district to schedule events. 

Councilman Mike Dellos said he thought the school had been paying. Duncan answered, “Yes. The last two or three years they paid $10,000 but it is a use fee. More of a donation. I want that stated (in the agreement).” 

Town Administrator Deaun Tigner explained further, saying the school district didn’t want it set as a number in case they wanted to change the amount. 

Duncan added that he would like to see the term have set dates (one year, two years, etc.) and to correlate with a fee.  “The goal is to eventually have the rec produce enough money they can pay their own utilities. To get the rec functioning in a way that they can afford to pay their own utilities and things. We as the town have said we are invested. We want the rec district to be able to utilize that facility, so we continue to pay the utilizes. They are connected to this building, so it is an easy skip to get there. At some point I would like the rec to live on their own two feet.”  

He believes that each item discussed at this meeting should also be discussed at a rec board meeting. Hopkin said they would be. 

Dellos said he would like to see included who has priority for the use. Duncan said currently the verbal agreement is that any rec program takes precedence. Anyone else that gets on the schedule for a funeral, family event, etc. on the rec schedule takes the next precedence.