Walker County renegotiating $1 rent to clinic

ROSSVILLE, Georgia (WDEF) – Walker county attorneys are waiting to see if Primary HealthCare Centers still wants to use their facility on Suggs Street in Rossville.

The two sides are expected to meet again tomorrow night to possibly discuss a contract.

Last year, Walker county commissioner Shannon Whitfield discovered, the center was paying only a dollar a year for the building, which has become the top healthcare provider in the north Georgia area.

A county spokesman says tax returns show Primary Healthcare is turning a 300-hundred thousand dollar a year profit.

Commissioner Whitfield imposed an 85-hundred a month rent last October, but has not yet been paid.

Walker County spokesman Joe Legge says “they flat out said that they could not pay the 8-thousand-800 dollars, but they decided that they could pay something …but we as a county can’t continue to let them stay in that facility and have taxpayers subsidizing their private operation.”

Legge says the county has learned that Primary Health Care has purchased a site in Ft. Oglethorpe for some 300-thousand dollars.

The company has not said what it plans to do with it.