CAMDEN — During the regular monthly meeting of the board of directors of the Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development in August, the board decided not to renew its lease on the building at 625 S. Adams Ave. and to move into the former Molex building on 570 Ben Lane off of Bradley Ferry Road. Camden Mayor Julian Lott then went to local radio station to talk about the board’s relocation and the issue he has with the state of the Adams Avenue building.
Lott said he was invited to the radio station’s podcast show by local personality Doc Bryce of (104.5) to explain what happened with the OPED lease. While on the air, the mayor also talked about the perception that he “kicked OPED out of the building,” and about requests he has made to OPED Executive Director James Lee Silliman for Silliman to provide information about OPED’s mission statement.
OPED’s lease at the Ouachita Valley Business and Technology Center - the official name of the building at 625 S. Adams Ave. - will expire on Sept. 30, and Lott - who is also chairman of the Camden Port Authority - initially put forth a resolution at a July port authority meeting that the board not renew OPED’s lease. The measure was not seconded.
At August’s port authority meeting, a resolution was passed to offer OPED a two-year lease, with OPED taking responsibility for all repairs on the building. However, the OPED board decided not to renew the lease and to move to the old Molex building, Lott told the Camden News in an interview after his radio appearance.
Lott stated that he wanted to clarify that he did not kick OPED out of the Adams Avenue building. He stated that he cannot make a decision like that alone. but he said that before one of the recent meetings, he saw Silliman exit one of the offices at the OPED building with other people - members of the board. And during OPED’s regular meeting when it was announced that OPED would vacate the Adams Avenue building and move elsewhere, there was no discussion about the issue. So he feels that there was “a meeting before the (scheduled) meeting of OPED’s board.”
Another point that Lott talked about at the radio station was the needed repair of the roof of the building at Adams Avenue - now to be referred to as the Technology Building.
Silliman has stated that the building is in need of a compressor for its AC units and a that a patch job on the roof - which, according to Silliman, was improperly installed - would cost $9,000. A full roof repair - which would consist of removal and replacement - would run anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000.
On the radio station, Lott also touched on the issue of the needed repair and stated that the person who initially incorrectly installed the roof should not be given the opportunity to take advantage of the city again.
The mayor also stressed that he never stated a person’s name regarding who may have been responsible for the work on the Technology Building’s inadequate roof. It has been rumored that he was under the impression that a specific person performed the roof work, but he says he has text messages from that person, stating that he did not do the roof work.
“So we know it is impossible for it to have been him by his own admission,” Lott stated. “I never said it was him.”
And during the interview with the newspaper, he stated that he still does not know who installed the roof, and he stated that neither does OPED Office Manager Dotty Harris.
The mayor said that Harris is “the go-to person for that type of information,” and is “very knowledgeable.” Lott added that Silliman does not know who installed the roof, either. The mayor stated that his “challenge was to know who did that to the city” so that person would not receive the bid again.
“So I don’t know who,” he said. “Nobody will tell me who. Nobody knows who put it in. That is weird. It feels like somebody at some point wrote a check. Whoever wrote that check had to put a name in there. And that check had to be audited by somebody. You understand what I’m saying? It’s impossible not to know. You can tell me you don’t want to tell me, but you can’t tell me nobody knows who it is.”
During this interview, Lott was told by the Camden News that around 2007 or 2008, the leaky roof at the Technology Building was already a point of contention, that there was a different person as mayor of the city, and there was another person at the helm of OPED at that time.
“The issue then becomes, at what point and who pays for it to be fixed,” said Lott. “I think that it is hemorrhaging to continue to pour money into it when you’ve already concluded that it’s not going to ever work. So we have to make a business decision about what we’re going to do.”
Lott said that the work on the roof was so shoddy that “there will forever be leaks in that ceiling.”
After the interview, the Camden News contacted Harris and Silliman about the details of the construction of the OPED building and the issue with the facility’s roof. Both stated that all of the paperwork is in the office of the city’s attorney, Michael Frey.
During a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Frey was able to provide the names of the entities involved in the construction of OPED.
He said that in 2008, a lawsuit filed by the City of Camden against F&J Construction, LLC, which was hired initially to build the OPED facility. That company then contracted a man named Jimmy Martin to help with construction.
When it was discovered that the work was shoddy, F&J Construction, Jimmy Martin and the RSA Inc. engineering firm were all named in a lawsuit by the city.
“It ended up with a settlement agreement where everyone (the three entities named above) contributed some money,” said Frey. “That would have been around 2011.”
The issue/claim of the lawsuit was arguing over who knew about the roof and when, shared Frey.
“So when the roof first went bad, OPED was in the building and I think they took efforts to deal with F&J directly,” Frey said. “And so they’re dealing with F&J and F&J came back and worked on the roof numerous times and continued to work on it and continued to work on it - them and/or Jimmy Martin. And they kept saying ‘we’re gonna get this fixed, we’re gonna make it right,’ and I think by the time it really got bad. That was when the city was notified - when none of that worked, that was when the city got involved and filed a lawsuit…saying that they (F&J) did not properly supervise the work.
“And when the engineers were notified, their defense was ‘well, it’s been too long and we weren’t notified in time.”
The three entities lost the case, and the city was awarded $18,000, Frey reported.
Since 2011, no one else has put a new roof on the OPED/Technology Building, or repaired it, said Frey, adding that roofers have said they could replace the roof, but it was deemed too costly.
“Instead, they were just doing remediation on that roof, which would be sealing either on an annual basis or every two years,” Frey stated, also stating that the $18,000 the city was awarded in the lawsuit was being used for the sealing projects on the OPED roof.
During the interview with the Camden News, Lott also talked about how the Technology Building can only be used for economic development by virtue of the grant the city received for the building. He said the roof has to be fixed and that his office is searching for grants to pay for the roof’s repair.
“So we will look for grants and whatever,” he stated. “I think that the abstaining group - the group that is ‘anti-me’ - is going to try to choke out the finances - this is my belief. It will take a budget to do some of the stuff.”
He said that Helen Aregood - general manager of the 104.5 local radio station that conducted the interview with Lott - asked Lott during the live feed of the interview about what he is planning to do about the Technology Building.
“And her husband, Mr. Chris Aregood, is actually a part of the board that decides on where monies go,” Lott continued referencing Chris Aregood’s seat on the Camden City Council. “So whether the city sinks or swims is not my decision by itself. All these decisions are voted on.”
Questions have been raised about how the Technology Building will be managed after the OPED crew leaves after Sept. 30, and Lott stated:
“I think they are curious to know about how I’ll be able to manage the building,” he said, “and I think that’s a good question to ask. However, they’re asking me questions that they failed to ask the previous occupant: ‘OPED, what are your goals, what are your ambitions, what are you planning to do?’ And I think those are questions that would have been also important questions to ask any person who’s occupying an economic development building that a grant had paid to build.”
The was mayor asked that, now that the OPED organization is moving to another location, how does he plan to manage that building regarding the day-to-day management of the building, the interaction with the businesses that are being “incubated” at the building, the payment of bills, etc. Lott said there is a large warehouse in the back of the Technology Building that he wants to use to “incubate” more businesses.
“We’ve reached out to start working on that, on having a presence in the building,” the mayor replied. “Because of how traditional our community is, it’s not the best idea for me to move down there.”
Lott stated that he cannot go into detail about the plans “because, to be honest with you, so many things have been done to sabotage everything that I wanted to do. They’re making it impossible - and I mean impossible. You’d be surprised at just the amount of slander and stuff that’s out there right now.”
He explained that he had a “literal plan of things that I want to do,” but he said he has to be “strategic on who’s engaging in that plan.”
“In 15 years in the existence of OPED - 15 years, they’ve only paid back $7,000 to the Port Authority at 10% of their income,” stated Lott. “Plus, they have been able to make utilities and phone without any of that going back to the Port Authority.”
The mayor added that have been “able to make it out from not paying rent at $1,200 a month. And I just believe that the business structure of it can be a little more productive, and I’ll get a chance to test the theory,” adding that OPED pays $1 per year.
Lott was asked if that was, indeed, part of the OPED contract with the Camden Port Authority.
He replied by stressed that: “Yes. In 15 years, you’ve only produced $7,000 with no true overhead - $7,000 is what you’ve been able to pay back. That’s 10% of everything you’ve made in 15 years?”
In a separate interview, OPED board member Robyn Yarbro made a statement about the inner workings of OPED - a business incubator - and the reason for it producing $7,000 in a 15-year span:
“The purpose of a business incubator is not to make money. Our purpose was to house these tenants at low rent and let them have low overhead while they’re trying to grow their businesses. Eventually they move out and they go to spaces. That’s the point.”
During the C.N. interview with the mayor, he said he thinks the Technology Building is at capacity now with tenants who utilize the building as a business incubator, but that he wants to expand the capacity of the building by using the warehouse space in the back of the building. He stated that the current tenants would not lose their contracts “if they decided to walk away.”
To get a reply to Lott’s statements, the Camden News reached out to Silliman, and he stated that there “was no meeting before the meeting” regarding the move of OPED from the Adams Avenue building. Silliman also stated that “there was not an executive meeting. The only executive meeting we had regarding the lease on where we currently are came as a result of the first Port Authority meeting where he (Lott) informed the Port Authority that he was recommending that they not renew our lease here at OPED.”
Silliman added that the minutes of the meeting of the Port Authority reflect that it was the mayor who recommended that the lease not be renewed. A copy of the minutes of that meeting state: “The chairman (Lott) proposed that the current lease not be renewed and that the Port Authority assume control of the building. There was discussion. No action was taken.”
Silliman also stated in the telephone interview with the Camden News:
“As a result, we had an OPED executive meeting to discuss that, and the mayor was there and was in attendance for that. And after the OPED executive committee meeting where we discussed the non-renewal of the lease - or his desire not to renew the lease - and we talked about how maintenance of the building was an issue. The roof leaks and the heating and air units are going down because they are 15 years old now.”
Silliman shared that the board members directed him to begin the process of relocation and working out the details to utilize the unused office space at the Molex building. The building is leased to a tenant currently, said Silliman, and the only portion of the building that the tenant is using is the warehouse portion and not the office space - about 3,200 square feet that is not being used.
He said the Molex building is owned by CAIDC - the Camden Area Industrial Development Corporation, which is a one of the partners in - he said OPED stands for Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development.
“And it’s a partnership between four groups that are working for the betterment of our community, our area,” said Silliman. “Those (four) groups are: The City of Camden, Ouachita County is a partner, Camden Area Industrial Development Corporation is a partner, and the Camden Area Chamber of Commerce is a partner. And they all fall under the heading of OPED - Ouachita Partnership, working together as a partnership for the betterment of our community. So we would actually be leasing from one of our partners in the Ouachita Partnership - which would be CAIDC - which is a separate, non-profit industrial development corporation.”
He said the building has been utilized and the CAIDC board is now making modifications on the lease for OPED to use the Molex office space.