Council discusses lease options at Optimist Park

The Mountain Home City Council met on March 9, for a regularly scheduled meeting. The meeting began with a presentation by Harris and Company about the Fiscal Year 2019 Audit in which councilmen were informed that everything looked normal and there was no areas of concern in the accounting of the city. The meeting then turned to the consent agenda, which was approved after Councilman Daniel Brennan asked to remove items dealing with the leasing of city property to other organizations was pulled for further discussion.

Brennan is concerned about organizations renting city property for amounts as low as $5, DDD currently rents the rodeo grounds for $10 for the yearly event. Brennan asked the city attorney, Paul Fitzer, and City Clerk Nina Patterson about the number of hours they put into the writing and reviewing of leases for this agreement and felt strongly that the taxpayers should not foot the bill for those expenses. Fitzer suggested the city come up with an ordinance for the other party in these types of matters to pay for the fees incurred. Fitzer also said that it is hard to put a number on such things but, something simple like the yearly renewal fee for the rodeo would see him billing for about half an hour worth of his time which wold cost $80. Patterson said that the work, including writing the resolution would take about a half an hour and would equal about $100 worth of her salary.

Due to that conversation, Councilman Brennan asked for the lease amount for the Daniel Dopps Rodeo to be set at $100 so other citizens "are not eating costs."

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