Troy Food Pantry stays put … for now

Troy city councilmembers agreed at Tuesday’s work meeting that the food pantry housed in city hall is not a burden to the city and should not be forced to move.

“This facility helps a lot of people out and it looks to me like you don’t have anywhere else to go,” Councilmember Gary Rose said to volunteers. “I don’t have a problem with you staying where you’re at.”

Mayor Don Banning had told Troy Food Pantry volunteers in January that they should begin looking for a new venue because of plans to build a meeting room in the space. He also commented to the newspaper that the food pantry costs the city in electrical expenses and that volunteer organizations should not be the responsibility of the city.

Banning told volunteers at the meeting that councilmembers would have no say in the matter.

“It’s not a legislative situation,” he said. “It’s an administrative decision, ultimately mine.”

After a half-hour discussion, he told volunteers that he had no immediate plans to move them out. 

“Don’t start running around, pulling your hair, because you don’t have to get out of there – right now,” he said.  

The food pantry is located in one of the two old fire engine bays that sit between the courtroom and offices in the city hall building.

The ordeal came about after the city applied for an energy efficiency grant that would swap out single-pane windows and replace the bay doors with a wall, windows and walk-through doors.

“If the grant were not to materialize, it would be a moot point because the plans for that area wouldn’t be financed out of city funds,” Councilmember Fran McCully said. “That was all based on being financed by this energy grant.”

Even if the city were awarded the grant, it wouldn’t fund the remodeling required to transform it into a meeting room. 

In addition, Food Pantry Director Sue Grabinski pointed out that the two bays amount to over 1,600 square feet. If a conference room were to materialize, it would most likely be built in the approximately 800 square feet between the city offices and the food pantry, which is currently used for storage.

“It’s just a matter of fiscal responsibility for the city and I, at this point, don’t want to put out money to build a conference room of that size,” McCully said. “I don’t feel what was in that energy grant would totally build that conference room.”

Councilmember Loretta Jones said that city taxpayers had already paid for two conference rooms, one of which is at the fire hall.

McCully said that without a contract between the city and food pantry, volunteers shouldn’t view the arrangement as permanent. If they ever found an ideal permanent location, she encouraged them to take advantage of it.

“Always be on the lookout for an opportunity, but don’t feel the pressure (to leave),” she said.

Councilmembers aren’t concerned with the food pantry’s energy use because they said that the county pays half of the complex’s electricity bill in exchange for the city housing the juvenile detention center and a Troy resident deputy.

Banning told Grabinski that when he informed her in January that she should find a new venue, he and the council were only in the “thinking stages” of building a meeting room. He said that he told her she would have six months to one year, though she denied at the meeting that he gave a timeframe.

“My impression that day that I left here after speaking with you was that, yes, we had a few months but we needed to find something else as quickly as possible because of the conference room going in,” Grabinski told Banning.

Banning said he would have interpreted it that way, too, but that it was “not the case.”

He went on to explain that city hall should be used for government functions.

“City hall is for city functions, city meetings,” he said.

Food pantry volunteer Donn Ross pointed out that citizens are also part of the city.

Jones added, “That’s what makes a city.”

When Banning became mayor in January, he bought new office furniture and moved his office into the space that had been used as a city and community meeting room.

“I’m sorry that the furniture was so extra big that we didn’t have another room here to meet in,” Banning said Tuesday, “but this is a mayor’s office – something the city can be proud of, instead of a card table and some folding chairs for small meetings.”

Banning said Tuesday that the food pantry would not be an agenda item at the following evening’s regular city council meeting. Members of the public were expected to address the issue during the public comment period, but the meeting is set to occur after presstime.