Wednesday, August 28, 2002
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Wednesday, August 28, 2002 |
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PTC Council sits at peace table with nervous authorities By JOHN MUNFORD
The rocky relationship between the Peachtree City Council and two of its autonomous appointed authorities may have lost some of its rancor for the moment as all parties came together last week to work out compromise positions on a disputed taxing agreement. At issue is the hotel-motel tax levied by the council. Both the Airport Authority and the Development Authority want the tax subsidy to continue at the levels contained in last summer's intergovernmental agreements. An outside attorney appointed by the council earlier this month found those agreements were entered into improperly and suggested the council go to court and get them invalidated. After the Airport Authority's meeting with council, the only remaining sticking point seemed to be the length of a new contract. Authority Chairwoman Cathy Nelmes said she preferred a longer term deal partially to help keep the federal funds flowing into the airport. "I'm not willing to encumber another council," said council member Steve Rapson. But fellow council member Annie McMenamin argued that council recently encumbered future councils by purchasing land at the entrance to the Wynnmeade subdivision for the location of a cart path bridge. "... Every two years there will be a new council," McMenamin said, adding that authorities were designed to take the "politics" out of operations like Falcon Field. "I'm not going to bind future city councils not on my watch," Rapson said. Council members seemed content to keep the authorities' hotel-motel tax subsidy funded at $120,000, but Councilman Dan Tennant said he would like to see that number reduced gradually over 10 years. The authority is in the process of acquiring 24 acres for later development with a $2.2 million federal grant, but if the land remains undeveloped it will likely cause federal officials to become concerned the airport is not spending grant funds wisely, Nelmes noted. The authority depends on the hotel-motel tax income solely for its capital improvement budget, not for its operating budget, Nelmes explained. Many capital improvement projects planned by the authority are to insure the airport can eventually become totally self-sustaining, she added. One such example is the Hangar Area B project, which is currently stalled because of a problem getting a nearby gravel road paved so tenants at the six hangar spaces planned there can have access to the property. That project will add approximately $4,000 a month in rent payments to the authority, and any new planes based there also add to the county's ad valorem tax digest, Nelmes noted. The road paving project has partially been stalled because the airport's purchase of the adjacent property has not been completed, leaving three entities owning Stallings Road, including the airport, Peachtree City Holdings Inc. and the Peachtree City Water and Sewer Authority. The authority has commitments from those entities to chip in for the road paving, but city regulations say the road can't be accepted by the city for paving unless there are two or fewer owners, said Airport Manager Jim Savage. Recently, Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown ordered city staff to decline taking any action on the matter "pending consummation of a revised Intergovernmental Agreement between the airport authority and the city," according to city documents. "This is an urgent need for us," Nelmes said, pointing out that some developers of the hangar sites have lost prospects because of the delays. At Thursday's meeting, Brown said he thought some of the other projects from that plan could be cut, particularly if the funds don't come from the federal government in coming years. He noted that the city is also facing significant budget cuts this year and next. "We're going to have to go to a lot of groups in our city and say that's not going to happen," Brown said, referring to the $1.8 million the city cut from its public improvement plan for the coming year. After the meeting, the authorities and council agreed to appoint two members from each body to serve on a committee to negotiate the final draft of the contract.
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