Saturday, January 14, 2017

Our commercial property

The Justice Network, a Memphis-based firm that works with courts to arrange public service jobs for defendants, has been forced out of business here by a combination of malicious pseudo-journalism and short-sighted judges.

The owner of the Justice Network, met me and our Realtor at our downtown commercial property this week to turn over the keys to their suite of offices and to remove their server. We are sad to see him go, but are gratified by his pledge to honor the terms of the lease and continue rent and utilities payments through the end of June. It takes a real stand-up guy to do something like that and he has my eternal gratitude and admiration.

I wouldn't hesitate to trust him with my wallet. Not so much with the newspaper editor who helped chase him out of town on the malicious premises that the Justice Network was somehow taking unfair advantage of the people it served. The two new judges campaigned on this absurd idea and on the promise that the courts could somehow take over the work being done by the Justice Network at a reduced cost to the taxpayers.

The courts looked at this option a few years ago and decided it would be more expensive, but these guys seem to think they are smarter than that. We shall see.

The upshot is that they have fewer sentencing options.

Our Realtor is hard at work looking for a new tenant. The sooner we can install a new tenant, the sooner we can release the previous renter from his financial obligation to us. The building was designed and built as medical practice with about a dozen examination rooms and generous office and storage space.

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