Village approves sale to foundation
Three months after it was first discussed in a meeting of the village board, the sale of the Phillips Memorial Hall to the Phillips Community Foundation was approved at the July meeting of the board July 11.
However, the vote came near the end of a more than two-hour meeting that included much lively and sometimes contentious back and forth discussion between trustees and village residents from both ends of the age spectrum.
After dealing with several unfinished business items from previous meetings, the first agenda item under new business was consideration of Resolution 2023-2 approving the sale of the hall and a nearby storage building to the foundation at a price of $14,000.
The first audience member to speak up during the hearing on the resolution was former village attorney, Dorothy Benton. She raised a question about a line in the resolution authorizing board chair Les Dana to sign all documents pertaining to the sale. Benton suggested that since Dana also serves on the foundation board (along with fellow village trustee Wayne Bergmark) voting on the sale and signing the documents would constitute a conflict of interest.
Current village attorney Kent Rauert agreed that Dana and Bergmark should recuse themselves and abstain from voting on the resolution, but said he didn’t see a conflict in Dana signing something that had been duly voted on by the board.
Next Benton questioned the purchase price of the property and asked where the valuation had come from. Dana responded that the amount of the purchase price was based on the assessed valuation of the bare property when it was acquired by the village and before Memorial Hall was built.
Benton’s third concern, which led to a lengthy discussion, was the fact that the sale will include the storage building east of the hall, which will continue to be used by the village. The plan is for the village to lease that building back from the foundation for five years with the rent payment being providing water, sewer and garbage pickup to the facility. Mowing of the easement area is also listed in the agreement as part of the rent payments.
“That doesn’t seem to make a lot of business sense to give away something the village already owns and then use taxpayer money to have to build something else,” Benton said. “You’re still paying money to use something you already own.”
Following several minutes of debate about the wisdom of selling the storage building and then renting it back from the foundation, Dana pointed out that the decision was made to write the resolution in that way because the village cannot legally give money to the foundation, but it can support the foundation by leasing back the building.
“This is one way that the village can help out the community foundation,” Dana said.
That led to a question of what benefit it is to the village to help out the foundation and at that point several individuals cited benefits to the town’s tax base from the events the foundation sponsors.
Rauert chimed in on that conversation by noting, “You’re ignoring the economic impact the community hall has upon your community. You collect more tax dollars because the community hall is here. You’ve got Darren (Bartunek) here opened up Winchesters. Do you have anybody who goes to the community hall who comes into Winchesters?”
“To that point, we just did July 3rd,” Dana stated. “We just had more people in town than I think we’ve ever had. Everybody was appreciative of the show and everybody was appreciative of the atmosphere in this town. That foundation was the sponsor.”
At that point, Jamie Bergmark, who had been quietly sitting in the front row of the audience, spoke up.
“This is the first meeting I’ve ever been to,” Bergmark said. “I work nights so I’m taking some time off. I have a business in this town. I grew up in this town. I will never leave this town. I take my business to the community hall because I want people in this town.”
Bergmark continued with an appeal to community pride and asked the board to approve the sale as a way to move the community forward.
“I grew up here. I’m not leaving here,” he concluded. “We’ve gotta start somewhere.”
Moments later community resident Linda Luttrell also spoke up for the first time in the forum.
“I’m just really upset that this is us and them,” Luttrell said. “My kids grew up in a school system where the grade school was in one town and the high school was in the other. It was always us and them. It didn’t help the school, didn’t help the communities. I don’t know why this is us and them. Why isn’t this a community, the whole thing?”
Agreeing with Luttrell, Dana continued with his defense of the agreement, “That is a Phillips Community Foundation. This was set up to benefit both parties... The foundation put the building up. The foundation has made improvements to it every year. The foundation pays... Here’s the utility bill for right here -- $943 for June.”
Francis McDonald, who is also a member of the foundation, spoke up from the back of the room to say that the foundation is an asset to the community because it can apply for grants and receive donations from estates.
“We are here to serve the community,” McDonald said, “not make money. I think it would be wise to give the hall to the foundation because we can run with it.”
Another audience member followed that up by saying, “We’ve gotta move forward and be a community and all work together.”
Several more minutes of discussion followed with numerous comments about the potential for growth, community pride and the need for the foundation and village to work hand in hand. Some members of the board also expressed concerns about the sale/lease-back portion of the transaction.
At about 8:30 p.m. (the meeting had started at 7), Luttrell spoke up again, reiterating her earlier comments.
“It shouldn’t be us and them,” she said. “It should be we!”
This was followed up by another member of the audience calling on the board to move forward with making a motion on the resolution.
With Dana and Bergmark abstaining from voting, that left only trustees Jason Fry, Jordan Watson and Jim Crawford to vote on the resolution. When the roll-call vote was called for, the resolution passed by a vote of 2-1 with Crawford voting no.
In unfinished business handled earlier in the meeting, the board heard a report from Watson on an assessment of village streets conducted by a paving company and discussed the recent Independence Day celebration in Phillips held on July 3.
“It was huge,” Dana commented. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people in town.”
The board also discussed the next big event for Phillips which will be an observance of National Night Out on Tuesday, Aug. 1. Dana announced that food will be served and other events are planned.
“Hopefully we’ll get everybody to come out and meet their neighbor,” Dana said.
Because the event falls on the village board’s regular meeting night, the board moved to change the August meeting to the next night.