Masons say lease deal with Lincoln is fair

LINCOLN – Its recent town office rent increase might seem steep, but the town is getting an exceedingly good deal from its landlord, the local Masonic fraternity and lodge, a spokesman for that organization said Tuesday.

Speaking out for the first time on the issue, Mark Weatherbee, a town optometrist and Mason, said Tuesday that the monthly rent increase, from $1,211.92 to $1,925, that the Town Council agreed to pay Monday night is the organization’s attempt to address vast increases in building and maintenance expenses that have occurred since 1995.

These increases include jumps of about 335 percent in heating oil costs, from $0.70 to $2.35 a gallon, insurance, from $1,647 to $2,781, or 69 percent, and taxes, from $2,352 to $3,328, or 41 percent, that the town has not had to pay over the last 10 years, the life of the town’s expired lease, Weatherbee said.

The recent rent increase represents no more than half of what other Main Street or downtown landlords charge their tenants, Weatherbee said, because the Masons are a charitable organization that does not seek to profit from its proposed 10-year lease with the town.

“We’ve missed out on about $15,000 in revenue that we could have collected over the last 10 years,” Weatherbee said Tuesday. “We believe in our hearts that this is a fair deal, more than fair. We just want enough [money] to maintain the quality of the building.

“We’re not about making a profit – in fact, some years we’ve run in the red,” he added.

Council Chairman Jeffrey Gifford and Town Manager Glenn Aho will hold a community forum at 6 p.m. Jan. 18 in Room 121 at Mattanawcook Academy to discuss whether the town should sign another 10-year lease with the Masons. Gifford and Aho invited town residents to give them direction.

The town rents the first floor of the Masonic building on Main Street, plus gets vault and cellar space for free, Weatherbee said.

Aho on Tuesday didn’t dispute Weatherbee’s points.

“I understand that [the Masons] have a rental to maintain and the reality is that everything has increased in cost,” Aho said. “Our reality is that we need more space, a larger vault, and more handicapped accessibility and parking. It would be nice to own our own facility as well.”

The Masons have allowed the town to go without a lease for about a year and a half. The Masons would be willing to discuss adding a ramp to the front door area and put a roof over the building’s side ramp to increase access for disabled residents, Weatherbee said.

Weatherbee said he was disappointed that Aho’s push for a new building failed to take into account the Masons giving the town so many breaks and fixated solely upon the current rent’s 58 percent increase over last year’s.

The increase is actually 29 percent over what the Consumer Price Index would warrant over 10 years and only 12 percent more if heating oil costs had been factored in, said Weatherbee, who was named the secretive group’s spokesman about three weeks ago to deal with the rent issue.

The Masonic fraternity of the Lincoln Lakes region has six members and its lodge has about 197 members, Weatherbee said.