Moving forward… City Council unanimously approves purchase of dentist office
Published 6:00 am Monday, August 12, 2019
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Star Photo/Ivan Sanders The neighboring Ritchie's building is part of the plan to gain much needed space for the Elizabethton Police Department.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders The Elizabethton City Council approved the purchase of the adjacent George Zorawski dentist office for $90,000 in Thursday's regularly scheduled council meeting. The purchase will be part of the Elizabethton City Police department's renovations to meet the need for additional space for the police department.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders Mayor Pro Tem Bill Carter, Mayor Curt Alexander, and CIty Attorney Roger Day review a piece of business before the Elizabethton CIty Council on Thursday evening.
Star Photo/Ivan Sanders With the Elizabethton City Council's approval to purchase the George Zorawski dentist office next door to the Elizabethton Police Department, after renovations are completed the public will find easier access.
BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR STAFF
After going back and forth for quite some time on how to approach the best options to expand the Elizabethton Police Department’s need for additional space, the Elizabethton City Council made a move forward to approve a commercial purchase and sales agreement to purchase the vacant George Zorawsky dental building adjacent to the police department.
The price of the building was $90,000.
The council has been reviewing two options that had been presented by Elizabethton Police Chief Jason Shaw to determine which would be more viable and accomplish the needs of the department.
Option A included the renovation of the Ritchie’s Warehouse next door to the police department with a price tag of $1,449,260 along with building an approximately 24’X38’8″ addition to the Northwest corner of the existing police department which came in at $701,886 making the total cost $2,151,146.
The second option included the same renovation to the Ritchie’s Warehouse plus the cost to renovate the dentist office which would make the cost to the city of $2,014,939 after the purchase of the building.
Council was also reminded that the cost did not include the cost of the finishings, furniture, and equipment that Chief Shaw had worked diligently to appraise as close as possible at $146,278.
A workshop before the meeting helped to open the door for the council to move forward as Rick Delaney with Raymond James and Associates who has worked with the city since the early 1990s advised the council on the current status of the market for taking out new money.
“The way the markets are today, we are sort of in a free-fall,” Delaney advised. “The interest rate is back to where we were in 2016 when the interest rate hit 50-year lows in the municipal bond market.
“It is an exceptional good time to do anything if you have to do it because it is a great time to borrow money. There is a lot of uncertainty in the market with the flight to safety globally and that is what is driving our interest rates down.
“In today’s market in financing over a 20-year period, you are probably going to spend about $60,000 on debt service per $1 million. So on $3 million dollars you will spend about $200,000 or a little less in rough numbers.”
In other council matters, the council unanimously voted to approve restructuring of the Elizabethton Municipal Golf Course from an enterprise fund to a department within the general fund that changes little than an accounting issue with no changes to current management of the golf course.
The council moved on a resolution to sell and provide details of the not-to-exceed $20,250,000 general obligation refunding bonds.
Other resolution approvals included an interlocal cooperation agreement for emergency communications with the Carter County Emergency Communications District in regard to 911 calls.
Also, approval was given to establish a five-member oversight committee for the Elizabethton-Carter County Veterans War Memorial and the Walk of Honor.
Johann Coetzee, Director of Water Resources, gave an update to the council on a grant between the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and the City of Elizabethton in the amount of $350,000 for the Doe River Water Line Crossing Project.
Coetzee said that there is still money needed to reach the $1,050,000 projected price tag to complete the project which would involve building a bridge across the river close to Valley Forge Freewill Baptist Church and running a new waterline across the river.
The project is vital as the current line could not withstand another catastrophic flood from the river such as happened in 1998 with Coetzee telling the council that another flood in that magnitude could possibly sever the lines which provide water to a large portion of Elizabethton including the hospital.
Currently, 5,000,000 gallons of water a day are pumped through the lines and Coetzee advised that even though water could be pulled from other resources, it would not be enough to cover the demand.
It would take close to two years to get the project complete as approval has to come from many different resources before any work could begin according to Coetzee.
