Fire Hall Update

Fire Hall Update

Couple months ago, I reported the story of the new Lenoir City Fire Hall being built at the old LCUB customer service building. I had reported that the LCUB had contributed $250,000.00 from the water and sewer department and $450,000.00 from the electric department to pay for the new fire hall. I was wrong. Actually, LCUB contributed $150,000.00 from the water and sewer department and $550,000.00 from the electric department to pay for the new fire hall. Either way, the utility contributed $700,000.00 to the project.

Back in December when I did the first story, somebody sent the article to the state comptroller's office. Well, that started a whole thing. The comptroller contacted the District Attorney's office, who in turn contacted LCUB officials who in turn did a full report on how it was, the utility came to pay for a fire hall for the city. You see, it's actually illegal for utility money to be spent for anything except utility ratepayer expenses.

After the city and LCUB bailed out on downtown, they essentially gave the old, main LCUB building to the moonshine company that's supposedly coming to town. They were going to sale the old customer service building to the highest bidder. They wound up getting two bids on the old customer service building, one for $61,250.00 and another one for $168,468.00. LCUB decided to reject the two bids and instead, to lease/sale the property to the city for $170,000.00 for the use as a fire hall. Things went down hill from there.

As the city moved forward they immediately ran into major problems with the ground stabilization, electrical, water and sewer services that had not been anticipated. That's when they realized the project would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than expected and that's when the city turned to LCUB to pay the bills. As of the end of 2019, LCUB had spent about $600,000.00 on the project.

The initial lease of the property by the city from LCUB is $30,000.00 for ten years. Then after that the two parties can renegotiate the terms of the lease. That means the city council will negotiate with the LCUB power board, who is also the city council, for new terms. So, the $170,000.00 lease has turned into a minimum at lease a $300,000.00 lease and LCUB stands to reclaim about half of their investment, depending on how the lease goes after the first ten years.

According to one high placed city official, the state comptroller's office has reviewed the whole matter and found no problem with LCUB paying all the bills.

So as you pay those utility bills, feel comfort in knowing that you're footing the bills for the city again.

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2/24/20