The record
Ten to one.
On Tuesday, August 18, the Sumner County Board of Education voted ten to one to approve the quitclaim deed for the Latimer House. Meghan Breinig cast the one vote against. The approval was made contingent on one week for the attorneys of both bodies to finalize the survey and the access to the 0.805 acre parcel.
The full County Commission had passed it the day before. The School Board said yes to the substance and asked for a week on the survey.
The survey
Why one week is worth taking.
That week is not a delay.
The parcel Mr. Brown reserved for himself had no recorded legal access. The access he used during his lifetime ended when he died, and on paper the parcel has been landlocked ever since. Whatever line the two attorneys draw on that survey is the line this property lives with in perpetuity.
Far better that it is drawn correctly now than found to be wrong after the deed is recorded. Both attorneys have until the end of the day on August 26.
What is settled
Both bodies have acted on the substance.
The house and the 0.805 acre parcel go to the Friends of the Latimer House at the William and Martha Brown Park, which received its 501(c)(3) recognition from the Internal Revenue Service on August 6. The board is unpaid, and the restoration will not cost the taxpayers a dollar.
The deed keeps the house as the park’s permanent centerpiece, and the grounds stay open to the public. It cannot be sold, demolished, moved or turned to private use. If the Friends ever walk away, the house and every unspent dollar come straight back to Sumner County.
“the historic home currently situated thereon being permanently maintained by the County as the park’s centerpiece.”
Codicil No. 1 to the will of William I. Brown, the sentence the conveyance rests on
The people
Three years of it.
Two committees carried this: the General Operations Committee and the Latimer (Brown) House Restoration Ad Hoc Committee. Between them, Commissioners David Klein, Tim Jones, Deborah Holmes, Chrissi Miller, Mary Genung and Jeremy Mansfield, School Board member Steven King, and citizens Jim Latimer, Mike McClard and Cindy McClard have worked at this for three years, through every roadblock, delay and stall tactic put in front of them.
Thank you to everyone who wrote an email, made a phone call or gave up a weeknight to sit in a room and be counted. The room was full every time it mattered.
What comes next
One week out.
The codicil was signed in 2016. The house has spent the decade since under brick, under a competing plan for the park, and under a fund it was never left to.
The attorneys have until August 26. After that the deed can be signed and recorded.
It was recorded nine days after this vote.