Wednesday, October 10, 2001
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Wednesday, October 10, 2001 |
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Tyrone wants joint jail deal for cities, county
By JOHN
THOMPSON
The town of Tyrone will soon send a letter to the Fayette County Commission asking the commission to negotiate with all the cities together on a new jail deal. The letter is a response to a recent communication from Fayette County Commission Chairman Greg Dunn saying the commission would prefer to negotiate with the cities on an individual basis. Tyrone Town Manager Barry Amos said the issue actually began in 1993 when the cities signed an agreement with the county to house all the municipal prisoners of Tyrone, Fayetteville and Peachtree City. The cities would add a surcharge of 10 percent on all fines paid to compensate the county for housing the inmates. In January, the cities received a letter from Dunn stating the agreement would be terminated Dec. 31 and he would be in further contact with the towns in 180 days to start negotiations on a new contract. Amos said it wasn't until Aug. 3 that Tyrone received another notice about the contract. The county forwarded a copy of its proposed agreement and asked the town to examine it. Toward the end of August, Tyrone sent a response back saying town officials had some problems with the new agreement. Specifically, the town did not like the clause that states if there is a surplus in the funds paid to the county that it would be rolled into the next year's costs, but if the funds did not match the costs, the municipalities would have to fork over additional funds. "Why can't the surplus funds be returned to the county?" Amos asked. The town also had problems with some of the definitions in the contract, and said if the county didn't actually house a prisoner overnight that it shouldn't have to pay the daily rate for the prisoner. Tyrone received another letter from Dunn Oct. 1, stating that the county preferred negotiating with the cities on an individual basis. But Amos said the issue affects all of the cities equally and the deal should be the same for everybody. "Our council did not believe this was the best type of negotiations, so we're going to ask the county to deal with all the cities equally," he said.
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