SPRINGFIELD — City commissioners are closer to passing a financial drain to public funds onto a religious organization.
Commissioners gave Mayor Ralph Hammond the go ahead Monday to present Generation Y Evangelistic Association Inc. with a lease to the Shaw Educational Center for $1 a year for five years, relieving the city from maintenance of the deteriorating facilities.
After Springfield bought the 4-acre property at 162 Detroit Ave. — assessed at $476,539 — in 2009 from Bay District Schools for $1, the city could not find a way for Shaw to sustain itself and even tried to give it back to the School Board.
Hammond discussed with school district director of operational support services John Haley about possibly giving it back shortly before the city shut off utilities in July.
“… And he pretty much laughed at me,” Hammond said, laughing at himself for the attempt. “He said: ‘Mayor, it’s yours.’ ”
To cut down on the cost of maintenance, the city shut off power to the building, but taxpayers still have been footing the bill to cut the property’s grass, replace cut locks and repair broken windows.
The city explored using Shaw for police and fire department training, leasing it for the Florida Department of Transportation to conduct truck driver tests and even had their parks and recreation department operating out of the building but could not keep it from hemorrhaging money.
Commissioner Carl Curti, who was on the board at the time of the deal, compared it to a bait and switch.
“It wasn’t in that bad of shape to start with,” Curti said. “A bunch of people at the time were coming up here wanting to use the building and they were going to do all this stuff … but when we took it, they all started reneging.”
The city’s agreement with Bay District Schools restricted uses of Shaw from anything educational that would compete with their curriculum, and the city could not lease the building for a profit.
Hammondwas hopeful the lease would be signed by this morning.
Any repairs or maintenance to the building would fall on Generation Y, an evangelical organization that conducts food drives and distributions. The group intends to use Shaw as a food shelter.
Generation Y would not be required to bring the facilities up to the city’s code. The mayor estimated it would have cost about $80,000 to fix deteriorating electrical utilities and the former school’s air conditioning.
“They’re not required to bring it back up to code, but whatever they need they would be responsible for,” Hammond said. “At least it will get people in the building instead of it molding and not being used.”