Letters: Art gallery owns its own building, not the harbor

Regarding the story "Harbor Gallery Protest Rate Hike," some observations that didn't come across from your story:

1. It sounds as if the harbor owns the Harbor Gallery building and is leasing it to the art association. This is wrong, the art association owns the building and is leasing the land that the building is on (like space rent). The building was bought by the art association years ago for about $25,000. We have also invested more money as needed over the last 20 years, including putting on addition. So to get one thing straight, we own the building.

2. We negotiated in good faith with the board committee and thought we had reached an agreement that we shook hands on. Then, out of nowhere, comes a letter stating that to stay here in our own building, for the next two years we would have to pay $750 monthly for one year, and then $1,200 monthly for one year, and then renegotiate a new lease after that. This is a 400-plus per cent increase the first year, and over 650 per cent increase the second year. Below is what we agreed to in November (the handshake agreement).

What we had agreed upon was a five year lease at an increase each year. Going up from $180 monthly to $250 monthly in year one, year two it would go up to $350 monthly, $450 monthly for year three and $550 monthly for the last two years. This sounded fair to both sides.

Well, it seems that the Harbor board may think that they are going to have an extra building to rent out. We may get driven out by this board, but we don't have to let them have the building. It can come down. This is just another option.

Hank Northrip

Coast Redwoods Art Association Board member