The Oxford Community Center (OCC) released a public Open Letter to the Oxford Community in response to the ongoing discussions with the Town of Oxford leadership. Several months ago, the Town of Oxford proposed a comprehensive rewrite of OCC’s 99-year lease, which has been in place for 46 years. Because this is a Town matter that affects an important community resource—and many residents may not be aware of the ongoing discussions—the OCC Board believes it is important to provide a public update.
The proposed lease included several new requirements, including giving the Town a greater role in approving and overseeing events held at OCC. The OCC Board believes some of these changes go beyond what is necessary to address the Town’s concerns and could make it more difficult for OCC to manage its programs, events, and rentals.
In an effort to find common ground, OCC asked the Town to identify its most important priorities and proposed a focused amendment to the existing lease addressing those issues. Some, such as maintaining appropriate insurance coverage and OCC’s 501(c)(3) status, are already part of OCC’s current practices. OCC has also expressed a willingness to add other protections requested by the Town, including indemnification.
Despite these efforts, the matter has remained unresolved for several months. The process has required considerable time and attention that could otherwise be devoted to programs, events, and the day-to-day work of serving the Oxford community.
OCC values its relationship with the Town and remains committed to working together in good faith. We hope both parties can reach a fair and practical agreement that addresses the Town’s concerns while allowing OCC to continue operating effectively and serving the community.
The OCC submitted a full and complete lease amendment addressing the Town and OCC concerns on June 19th for the Town’s review. We believe the issues are resolved with this amendment and look forward to a resolution on 9/22.
Oxford Community Center (OCC) Board of Trustees
Oxford
2 Responses
As full-time residents of Oxford for the last five years, and part-time for the previous ten, we have participated in many events held at the OCC both as audience members and as volunteers. We believe that the current level of service to our community with these events is outstanding and attracts audiences to Oxford from throughout Talbot County. The OCC staff and board along with town residents deserve a timely resolution of any problems that exist to assure that all such programs there will continue to be held. Ninety days is certainly a reasonable time frame for the town commissioners to respond to the proposal that OCC sent them.
I read the discussion on the town council of Oxford and the Oxford Community Center Board and a blog that I found recently on arguing that the Oxford Community Center is under used . My comment is , that the community of Oxford and Easton use the Oxford Community Center , they have a voice , have the Oxford Community Center Board send out a questionnaire on what do the residents think the best use could be, what type of venues, speaker series, continue with the well performed and entertaining plays , craft shows ,
An adult education on Astronomy, health, computer literacy , sailing classes , navigation classes , history of Talbot county and the town of Oxford, photography , genealogy, gardening, painting classes and enrichment courses in general , what you don’t need are the bureaucrats from the town of Oxford taking over to grab a tax base for another revenue source . The community center belongs to the community, they need to drive its use , the board of the Oxford community Center needs a little marketing to drive that use . It’s fine to amend a document to catch up with the current legal and professional needs for insurance and other matters but for the community to lose its input, will kill the Oxford center and burden the community instead .