Arts & Entertainment

Dunedin Fine Art Center Lease Nearly Skips City Attorney Review

The oversight chilled some Dunedin leaders. One called it "disturbing" to receive and vote on a 20-year lease agreement before the city attorney could review it.

A contract giving the Dunedin Fine Art Center a 20-year lease extension was slipped to leaders for approval before the city's attorney could review it.

Mayor Dave Eggers called the oversight "disturbing" and "ridiculous."

The proposed agreement "jumps around all over the place" and the language "monkeys around," City Attorney Tom Trask said during a June 6 commission meeting. 

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He discovered it Thursday before the commission meeting when Eggers called Trask for his interpretation of a paragraph that Eggers feared would put the city on the hook for the Fine Art Center's utility bills.

"One disturbing thing he did say to me was that he hadn't done this agreement," Eggers said to Rob DiSpirito, city manager, "and that, I guess, it was done by the city attorney in 2010, Rob, beforehand. Our city attorney hadn't had the chance to look at this yet."

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"OK, I wasn't aware of that," DiSpirito replied.

The extended lease agreement for Dunedin Fine Art Center comes on the heels of its $500,000 grant award from the state, which city leaders agreed to match as part of a "quality of life" package in February.

The combined $1 million in state and local grants funds an upcoming Art Center expansion, and a lease extension is necessary to satisfy state grant conditions that it remain open for public use for a minimum of 10 years.

With a project completion date set in summer 2014 and a lease agreement expiring in August 2023, the Art Center was left with only nine years of public use, in the state's eyes.

The Art Center also said it anticipates a need for additional construction loans, but banks require loans be tied to a 20-year contract, DiSpirito explained in a city memo.

Thus, he proposed adding another 15 years to Dunedin Fine Art Center's lease agreement, pushing its expiration to 2038 and giving neither the state nor the banks a reason to deny funding.

But, the discovery that Trask had not reviewed the proposed agreement chilled some city leaders.

"It shouldn't come in part of our package unless it comes from him," Eggers said to DiSpirito.

Trask pointed to specific parts where he, as a city attorney, was confused.

"The whole paragraph is confusing, because it jumps back and forth," he said. "It's obviously was a change from the original paragraph, paragraph 7, which in my mind was very, very clear from the original lease."

He proposed adding language that would simplify and clarify the proposed lease, and asked for direction to update it.

Vice Mayor Julie Ward Bujalski said she agreed the lease needed to be extended for the Dunedin Fine Art Center, "but I have a bigger concern that our city attorney has not seen this document." 

She "respectfully" asked her fellow commissioners to support "that our city attorney goes through this document and makes it his own."

"He did not draft this," Bujalski said. "There is not another lease agreement in the city that wouldn't be drafted by our city attorney." 

The mayor asked if it would create a time-sensitivity issue for the Art Center if the commission gave Trask time to go through the document and bring it back to the June 20 meeting.

Commissioner Julie Scales made a motion before anyone could answer:

"I would like to make a motion to approve the amendment as presented, I'm somewhat familiar with some of the discussions that have ocurred. Uh, this is the first I've heard of someone being confused by it."

Commissioner Ron Barnette said, "Yeah, I'll second that. I think we can work this stuff out, too. Just an extension of what we have."

Eggers clarified his concerns.

"Well, first we have a document that our city attorney is not comfortable with, and that's who does the agreements that we always sign and approve."

"Did he find illegality in this?" Scales said.

"He did not. He said he was uncomfortable with the way the second paragraph was written, not what was said in it, necessarily. Although, he had some questions about that. But I don't think we're talking about our committment to the art center on what we're doing. We're just talking about the wording and really more importantly that our city attorney needs to take a look at it," Eggers said.

Trask explained again, in finer detail, nearly word-for-word, what edits and clarifications he proposed in a particularly confusing paragraph.

"... And then the remainder of the paragraph, except for the words 'thereafter' and capitalizing the 'T' before the word 'City,' it would remain the same," he said.

Scales amended her motion. 

"I'll amend my motion to move approval of the amendment as suggested by the city attorney," Scales said.

Barnette was comfortable with the attorney's clarifications and the Dunedin Fine Art Center's extended lease was approved unanimously.

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