Presiding Commissioner Steve Black started the discussion on the Coffee Community Church property on May 19 by announcing that Attorney Brooks Kenagy, who first brought the property to the commissioners’ attention, would be unable to attend the meeting due to a medical issue. Black relayed that Kenagy would be at the May 26 meeting.

Citizen John Ransom, not wanting to waste his allotted time, presented a petition to the commission to establish a community board that would administer, preserve, maintain and protect the property and the interest associated with the deed dated Jan. 2, 1953, and recorded on Jan. 20, 1953, in the county’s recorder’s office.

“The purpose of this petition is to request that the county commission establish or recognize a governing community board whose sole purpose shall be to act in the best interests of the residents and historical community of Coffee Community, Mo.,” the petition read. “The board shall exist to preserve the intent and community benefit associated with the above-referenced deed and related community property.”

The deed referenced said that if the property was no longer used for church or Sunday school purposes, then the title would pass to the county commissioners, as trustees, for the use and benefit of the people residing in the Coffee community. It also said that the community is to use the property as a community center.

Resident Geneva Young has been maintaining the property’s yard, while resident Lee Young has been mowing the ditches since Pastor Gene Whittaker retired. Young said she has records from the school board, dating back to 1912, when the building was a schoolhouse, so the building is over 100 years old.

With the building having been around so long, Ransom and Kaytlin Islas are going to go to the Crawford County Historical Society to see if they can find out more or if they can help.

Islas asked if they had time to reestablish it as a church.

“I’m part of a church in Waynesville, and their mission is to empower leaders by planting churches,” Islas said. “They have a whole series of growth tracks and outreach. So over the last year, I’ve taken the whole course to plant a church, and they help with funding, as well as establishing a board. It would be a satellite of their church, so it would be a possibility that they would be able to oversee a lot of that.”

Black read a letter from Kenagy about the property and his research on its ownership.

Kenagy said that the building’s electricity hadn’t been used since Oct. 20, 2022, and the title to the property reverted back to the county after it ceased use as a church and Sunday school. He also said that if the county “decided to dispose the property,” they should try to recover fair value.

Young added that in the last five years, the community has been using the building.

“We’ve had funerals there, we’ve had weddings there and if someone wanted to say, use the building for a family reunion, well, they’d make a donation,” Young said.

Black said that he wished this had never become an issue, but if the county has the deed to the property, then it is out of their hands.

“We are obligated to do what’s best for the county, not what’s best for a small group of people,” Black said. “We didn’t go searching to try to take the property…Brooks didn’t go searching to try to take your property.”

They don’t want the property or the liability that comes with it, which they recently insured against.

In his letter, Kenagy mentioned a recorded resolution from the commission that gave unrestricted use of the property to the Coffee Community Church for a period of 10 years.

Associate Commissioner of District 2 Jared Boast said that at some point, when the resolution was reaching its deadline, someone should have reached out and said that they were still using it as a church and get the resolution extended.

Associate Commissioner of District 1 Mark Pfeiffer added that they are going to do what is legal.

“There can’t be any gray area anywhere in this because it’s not going to benefit us. It’s not going to benefit you guys to have a gray area somewhere because that’s technically kind of what we’re dealing with right now,” Pfeiffer said.

The discussion will continue in the May 26 meeting.