With mere days remaining before the Letter of Intent to negotiate exclusively with Pioneer expires on January 1, 2012, the Scott County Commission was set to review and act upon a final lease proposal from Pioneer Monday night; however, County Mayor Jeff Tibbals told Commissioners that Pioneer had not submitted a revised lease for the county consideration. “I was speaking with Morgan Dunn (VP of Business Development of Pioneer)…five minutes before this meeting. She and Pioneer’s attorney are working on it as we speak,” Tibbals said. At the December 4th meeting of the Community Development Committee, Tibbals had said he hoped to have the document by December 11. “I am 95 percent confident we’ll have something by Wednesday, December 21,” Tibbals concluded.
Without a lease proposal in hand, the Commission seemed at a loss on how to proceed. Tibbals noted that once the proposal was in hand, the Commission had several options. “We could either have a special called meeting of the Commission or the Hospital Committee (could convene) before we bring it to the full Commission,” Tibbals suggested. Either option would force a special called meeting to be held sometime before the New Year.
With the Letter of Intent to negotiate exclusively with Pioneer set to expire on January 1, 2012, discussions turned to the possible necessity of extending the agreement. Should a lease agreement with Pioneer be reached, the lease must be submitted to the Tennessee Attorney General for approval, a process that could take up to 45 days. “Once we sign it, we can extend the Letter (of Intent) until we receive word from the Attorney General,” Tibbals said.
In the end, the Commission took no action on the issue; choosing to wait for submission of the revised lease for further consideration. Although the Commission didn’t act on extending the Letter of Intent, county leaders pledged to continue working with Pioneer.