By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayette County commissioners have scheduled a public hearing on proposed impact fees to pay for a new jail and for fire services, and may go forward with or without the town of Tyrone.

County Commission Chairman Harold Bost fired verbal volleys at the town with both barrels during the commission's regular meeting Thursday, and suggested that the county should refuse space in the jail for the town's prisoners if the town doesn't participate in collecting the impact fees.

Furthermore, maybe it's time Tyrone had its own fire service as well, Bost suggested.

Commissioners are asking local cities to collect impact fees (charged to developers to help pay the cost of new facilities made necessary by growth) to help pay for the $25 million jail project. Tyrone also is being asked to collect impact fees for fire service improvements, because the town is in the county's fire service special tax district.

City and county leaders have been negotiating the details of a formula for collection of the fees for about two months, with each round of discussions followed by a new proposed formula.

But town officials failed to respond to the latest formula proposed last week. Bost said he talked with Mayor Sheryl Lee and was told that the county's requests for input “have never been brought back up” in discussions of the Town Council.

He said he told Lee, “Maybe now is the time Tyrone should take over its own fire services, and maybe y'all want to build your own jail.”

“We cannot allow the rest of the county to be held hostage to the city of Tyrone,” Bost told his fellow commissioners Thursday.

Town Councilman Ronnie Cannon has been vocal in his opposition to any forward motion on the county's impact fee requests until the county moves forward on local cities' claims that their residents pay more in taxes than they receive in services.

The issues are completely separate, Bost said, and should be dealt with separately. “We have no other option but to proceed to see what we can do without Tyrone,” he said.

Commissioner Greg Dunn said Tyrone's stance is “frustrating,” but said, “I hold out hope that we'll be able to resolve the matter.”

If not, he added, “The ultimate result will be that all the citizens of Fayette County will pay a little more in their taxes to pay for the jail.”

Commissioners voted 3-2, with Herb Frady and Glen Gosa opposed, to schedule a public hearing on impact fees for the group's Aug. 24 meeting in hopes that a final formula can be arrived at by then.

Frady has been opposed to the plan to use bonds to pay for the jail and pay them back with a combination of impact fees and property tax increases, arguing that the county should put a special purpose local option sales tax on the ballot instead.