Board unanimously denies Community Center lease

POTOMAC - Members of the Potomac School Board unanimously voted to deny an amended Potomac Greenough Community Center (PGCC) lease agreement for 2021-2022 during a special meeting Monday, Feb. 22. Earlier in the meeting, the Board unanimously approved the Potomac Association of Classified Employees (PACE) contract for 2021-2023 as well as the Principal’s contract for 2021-2022 with slight revisions made to both.

The School Board met Tuesday, Feb. 18 where they discussed the lease and made initial amendments to it. The lease they approved at the time had the school paying PGCC $37,310 this year, $10,000 of which will go towards facility upkeep while $7,310 will go towards insurance. PGCC also received a one-time payment of $20,000 to go directly towards a furnace in the facility from the school. This will not cover the entire cost of the furnace. The Board said an estimation for total cost could be "as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars" but they are initially looking at $70,000, most of which will be covered with this additional payment.

At the Feb. 22 meeting, the School Board discussed the PGCC board’s response to the proposed lease and areas they felt were the school’s responsibility.

One aspect that caused much discussion among school board members was the maintenance schedule and the responsibilities of both the PGCC and School. According to the agreement from PGCC, the majority of the maintenance costs the school would be responsible for are interior.

Board member Dr. Courtney Hathaway said according to PGCC Chair Dawn Downs the $10,000 yearly contribution from the school would only cover capital expenses and not the necessary maintenance PGCC wants to do. PGCC said if the school did not agree to be responsible for helping to maintain these aspects, then the Center would need to raise the lease amount. Hathaway took issue with an aspect of the contract stating that the school would be responsible for the maintenance according to the Center’s maintenance schedule.

“We [as School Board representatives] didn’t like that,” Hathaway said. “Why are we paying you this much increased lease amount and now you’re also asking us to maintain the entire inside of the building?”

Hathaway said that they asked Downs to strike out that aspect of the lease and move forward but Downs countered and said that some form of that stipulation has to be in the agreement. 

Hathaway told Downs that it did not seem fair for the school to be responsible for all of the interior maintenance when nothing in the contract stated that PGCC could not rent out the building for private events where additional wear and tear can take place.

Downs brought a new lease agreement to the Board that stated that maintenance fees will be assessed and maintenance completion will be agreed upon by the lessor and lessee prior to the start of the school year which would put both parties in negotiation at the beginning of every school year as to who will pay for what.

The Board decided to strike the following maintenance requirements the PGCC outlined for the school:

• Replacement of the gym floor

• Stage flooring

• Kitchen and foyer flooring

• Acoustical

• Log conditioning

The School Board had no issue with the school being accountable for additional maintenance, but the Board decided to revise the attached maintenance schedule because they viewed certain items as capital upgrades and not maintenance. School Board members also requested to replace the word “overdue” as to when the upgrades are necessary in the Maintenance Requirements document with some sort of estimated timeframe to remove the implication that the school would be expected to make these maintenance purchases during this lease year. In addition they requested that “Wall Board Replacement” be replaced with “Wall Board Maintenance.”

In the “Damages” section of the lease, the School Board struck the following sentence, “In the event scheduled maintenance is not performed according to Attachments C&E, Lessor reserves the right to contract labor and access a 10% penalty.” They did this because it did not pertain to damages, but listed maintenance directly.

The Board also struck the following sentence regarding insurance, “Lessor will provide notice to Lessee of any increase in premiums and Lessee shall have no duty to pay for any such increase unless and until it receives said notice.” Trustee Wes Mitchell said the Board would strike this with the explanation that they could not add on next year’s costs to this year’s contract because they do not want to preemptively commit.

Mitchell was concerned that if the school agreed to PGCC’s lease as presented, then there would be no motivation for PGCC to look for other sources of income.

Trustee Dr. Courtney Hathaway said they considered adding a clause that the school would not be responsible for repairing damage caused during outside events, but that it would be difficult to prove when exactly an incident took place. She and Downs agreed that the vast majority of the damage caused to PGCC was likely caused by a student even though the Board estimates that the school uses the building less than 75% of the days in a year.

Board Chair Cliff Vann said he was not concerned about the lease amount but he was concerned about language in the lease considering the gym floor wear and tear instead of a capital investment.

“I think we all feel like most of the wear and tear that happens in that place is because kids use it for the most part,” Vann said. “Gym floor replacement, that’s not wear and tear. That’s a capital investment. My thought, as we tried to set this process in place, was that by providing $10,000 a year towards maintenance, and us taking care of the wear and tear, they could truly accumulate money for capital expenses like a new floor.”

Mitchell compared the school’s use of the Center to renting an office where expected wear and tear should be covered by the rent while any damage specifically caused by associated users would be paid for by the school. He also suggested taking photos of the interior in the beginning to produce visual timestamps that could document a location’s initial condition should any future disputes take place.

Despite the complexity and the disagreements in the discourse between Potomac Elementary School and PGCC, Trustee Gary Long said he hopes that the conversation does not lead to the two entities parting.

“I don’t want us to jump to the stage of them throwing us out or us saying, ‘Forget it,’” he said. “I really don’t, because we kind of do love each other.”

Because the School Board unanimously voted to reject PGCC’s proposed lease, the committee will again meet with Downs for further discussions to see if they can reach an agreement.

**Editor's Note: This article was updated March 15. It was incorrectly reported that Potomac School Board member Kelsy Ployhar was working with PGCC Chair Dawn Downs on the lease when it was Board Member Dr. Courtney Hathaway that presented this information to the board. Also in the article, while the PGCC received a one-time payment of $20,000 from the school, the PGCC board did not request it. We apologize for the errors.