Exploring the Option to Sell
Newest board member Josh Devore and Chairperson Lisa Boswell discussing the amortization schedule for the loan on the building.
By PJ Martin
Editor, The Herald-News
The Edmonton Metcalfe Industrial Development Authority met in special session on Monday, July 27th at City Hall.
Those in attendance were Lisa Boswell, Josh Devore, Matt Gallagher, Jerry Garmon, Luke Wilson, Mayor Doug Smith, J/E Larry Wilson, Alley Bragg, Chad Pennington, and PJ Martin for the Herald-News.
Everyone welcomed the new board member, Josh Devore, who will serve the remainder of the term left vacant by the passing of Terry Garrett.
Chairperson Boswell opened the meeting and asked for a motion to accept the minutes from the June 15th meeting. The minutes were approved after motions by Garmon and Wilson. This was followed by the approval of the minutes from the June 29th special called meeting after motions by Garmon and Wilson.
Next was the treasurer’s report by Bragg, “On the first page, we’re only looking at the last one. We added the ESB interest of $3.29. Then over on the next page, on July the 16th, I paid the 2027 registration fee to DLG. I have a check ready, it’s ready to go in the mail to the insurance for $6,585.48. And then Pennington Stave made their lease payment of $6,866.75. And that leaves us with a bank balance of $40,264.91.”
The motion to approve the financial statement was made, seconded, and approved.
Boswell then asked, “Chad, do you have any updates for us?”
Pennington responded, “I just wanted to touch back on what we talked about at the last meeting…,” referring to the possible sale of the stave business, “So, he (possible buyer) has been down since our meeting, and what he’s proposing is to acquire the assets and the lease from myself and the current owner.”
“He actually had a mill identical to what we have out here, same equipment and everything. They got shut down as well when the state market collapsed. But it would take some more investment on the equipment. But you can do some stuff to get it to cut other material. Customer base, experience, knowledge in the industry, he wants to bring that here and get the jobs back up for us. And one of the ways he wants to do that would be to purchase the building and then purchase the equipment from us. And so, what I hope that we can get out of this meeting is agreement on price, and then go from there.”
The board then went into executive session to discuss the matter. Approximately twenty minutes later, they returned to open session.
“So, I’ll make a motion that we go through the proper steps in order to explore whether or not we can sell legal or sale property and to determine what value we would need to have in order to satisfy our fiduciary duty,” stated Devore.
The motion was seconded by Gallagher and then approved.
Next, Boswell passed out copies of KRS statutes pertaining to the industrial board to each member to read at their leisure.
Gallagher then added, “I make a motion that we retain counsel and delegate you (looking at Boswell).”
The motion was seconded by Garmon, who added, “Perhaps it would be, if you can, best to consider an in-county attorney. That understands maybe the ins and outs better than the outsides…That’s just a suggestion.”
J/E Wilson stated, “We need to get this resolved. I’ve been county judge for nearly 4 years. This is all I’ve heard. And in representing the county, we’ve always turned over that money (RDAPP). But we can’t do it no more. I’ve seen others that are needing help… And another thing I want to clarify, when this is over, how much land this board has…”
Someone asked about the section across the road, and Boswell answered, “It’s not part of it.”
Mayor Smith said, “Get it appraised and give him an option on it.”
The motion was made and approved to get the Stave business and land appraised. Devore was asked if he could get the appraisal done.
Once council is obtained and the appraisals are received, the board will have a special called meeting to discuss this further.
