DALTON, Ga. — The Partnership Health Center, which provides low-cost health care to those with low incomes, could see its lease at Dalton’s Mack Gaston Community Center extended for another year.

Steve Miracle, CEO of Georgia Mountains Health Services, the Morganton-based nonprofit agency that operates the center, says the city has sent him a draft contract he is largely happy with.

“But there are one or two conditions that I have some concern about,” he said. “The key thing is the days and hours of operation. They want us to be open five days a week from, I think, 8 to 5. But the way it is written it doesn’t make allowance for when we have to do training and stuff like that. I’d like some clarification on that and to see if we can get something that gives us a little flexibility.”

Miracle says he sent an email to council members this week expressing his concerns. He says he was told that he should get an answer back next week.

Miracle says there’s nothing else in the agreement he has a problem with. The agency would continue to pay $1 a year in rent for its space.

Georgia Mountains has operated the clinic for the past five years. On May 9, Mayor Dennis Mock sent a letter to Georgia Mountains cancelling that lease effective at midnight on July 31. While Mock’s letter did not specify why he terminated the lease, he said in an interview, “We’ve had some concerns about whether they have been open the hours they should be. We’ve sent some city employees over there for drug testing and they weren’t open, so we’d have to send them back and lose more time.”

On June 2, City Council members agreed the city would try to renegotiate the lease.