Wednesday, November 7, 2001
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Wednesday, November 7, 2001 |
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Cities, Fayette await tax equity ruling By DAVE HAMRICK
As of press time Tuesday, senior Judge Stephen Boswell had not ruled on Fayette County's motion to dismiss a request for mandatory mediation in the county's long-standing tax equity dispute with three local cities. Lawyers made their arguments Thursday afternoon and now await Boswell's decision. Boswell took the case under advisement after assistant County Attorney Dennis Davenport and Rick Lindsey, city attorney for Peachtree City, presented their cases. Davenport asked the judge to dismiss the cities' request for mandatory mediation of the dispute, while Lindsey asked him to appoint a mediator to settle the cities' claim that their residents pay about $2 million a year more in taxes to the county than they should. Peachtree City, Tyrone and Fayetteville are the three cities involved. In his argument, Davenport said the cities haven't shown the necessity of bringing in a mediator. The state law that requires counties and cities to work out joint service delivery strategies also provides for mandatory mediation, Davenport admitted, but he argued that once a strategy has been agreed upon, mediation is necessary only if one party to the agreement is violating it and the state is threatening sanctions as a result. The county's position is that all the parties involved signed a joint service delivery strategy that has been approved by the state, and it's not necessary to renegotiate that agreement through mandatory mediation. "There is no violation of the strategy here," said Davenport. "Just because someone is dissatisfied ... doesn't necessarily mean it's a violation of the service delivery strategy." The agreement, signed in 1999, acknowledges that the cities and county continued to disagree on equitable funding for police and jail services, public works and recreation, and called for continued discussion of those issues through Dec. 31, 2000. City officials look on that date as a deadline after which the agreement would technically "expire," creating the need to renegotiate and enter into mandatory mediation, argued Lindsey. "It has become necessary to review and possibly revise the service delivery strategy," he said, adding that the state law requires cities and counties to make sure that city residents are not paying for services primarily provided to residents of the unincorporated county. That situation exists, he argued, and therefore, "If we don't go back and revisit this, then the cities and the county are violating the law." Davenport said the agreement did not "expire" after the Dec. 31, 2000 deadline passed, because the agreement calls for continuation of current funding of those services if an agreement isn't reached. Judge Boswell played devil's advocate with Lindsey on that point. The service delivery strategy agreement amounts to a contract, he suggested. "What if you agree to a bad contract?" he prodded Lindsey. "How do you get out of a bad contract?" Lindsey said the county already has changed the agreement by notifying the cities that the former method under which the county housed city prisoners in the county jail is no longer in effect. "If the county has the right to terminate that contract, then it absolutely has changed the service delivery contract," he said. Boswell said his decision on the dismissal motion "ought to be fairly quick." If he denies the motion, Davenport said the county probably will appeal to a higher court, and if he grants the motion, the cities probably will do likewise, said Lindsey.
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