The Crockett Economic and Industrial Development Corporation approved a month-to-month lease agreement with Deep East Texas Local Workforce Development Board, Inc., dba Workforce Solutions, to allow Workforce Solutions to continue operating its Crockett office at 1505 South Fourth Street while the city and CEIDC complete a transfer of assets. CEIDC board members and city staff said the agreement was requested so Workforce Solutions could meet Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) monitoring requirements that call for signed leases.

City attorneys and Workforce attorneys reviewed the proposed document and recommended a month-to-month form while ownership and long-term arrangements are sorted. An email from Lauren Phipps at Workforce Solutions — read into the record — warned that TWC may have concerns without a signed lease and asked that the agreement be executed “sooner than later.” The lease, as proposed, maintains the prior arrangement that Workforce reimburses shared costs rather than paying a fixed rent; meeting speakers said Workforce’s prior occupancy began roughly four years ago and that the most recent formal lease had expired in December of the prior year.

Council members raised several concerns during a lengthy discussion. Some members said Workforce had not consistently paid invoices in the past and asked why invoices were not processed earlier; staff responded that invoices sent previously were not timely generated by city staff. Council members also pressed for options other than the single month-to-month document that staff presented; staff said the lease language was drafted by Workforce and reviewed by the city’s attorneys and Workforce attorneys and that attorneys were comfortable with a month-to-month approach during the pending asset transfer.

On the EDC side the motion to approve the month-to-month lease carried. When the item returned to the City Council for a separate vote, the transcript records that only two council members voted in favor on the city side and that the city did not concur with the EDC’s approval for the same item. City staff said that if no active lease were executed Workforce would have to move and that approving the month-to-month document was intended to preserve services during the transition. Council members said they would revisit a longer-term lease once the transfer of EDC assets to the city was complete.