Wednesday, January 8, 2003
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Wednesday, January 8, 2003 |
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Turns out, Mayor Brown was right . . .
By
CAL BEVERLY Well, Ollie, it's a fine mess you've got us in. Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedies come to mind with the latest chapter in the Peachtree City Tennis Center mess. The new city attorneys and the city's bond attorney have issued an opinion that in effect says, Steve Brown was right. Turns out the city's autonomous development authority is operating both the new tennis center and the Fred Brown Amphitheater in violation of state law and a Georgia Supreme Court ruling. Further, state law prohibits the city from picking up the authority's $1.456 million debt, according to the Jan. 3 opinion from Theodore P. Meeker, III, the city attorney, and Earle R. Taylor, III, the city's attorney for borrowing issues. In addition to state law against a city assuming debt of an authority, the state's constitution "also prohibits the city from 'assuming' or 'paying' the authority's debts without the assent of a majority of the city's qualified voters," the attorneys wrote. The attorneys said even an intergovernmental agreement between the two parties can't get around the rules. "In summary, it is doubtful that the development authority is authorized by law to operate or manage either the tennis center or amphitheater on behalf of the city," the city's attorneys wrote. So, the grand experiment fashioned under the reign of Mayor Bob Lenox in the early 1990s of having an industrial development authority run an entertainment venue and later an exclusive tennis center however successful or unsuccessful that role may be adjudged today is just simply unlawful. Some questions arise. How did we get into this mess? Why didn't previous city and bond attorneys do a little legal research to find out whether such facilities could be operated by an appointed group supposedly created to bring new industry to town? The laws and cases cited in the Jan. 3 memo to the city seem overwhelmingly to shout, "You can't do this!" Were the previous rulers and authorities so insulated from reality outside Peachtree City that they either ignored the laws and rulings or did they suppose regally that they could get away with it just because of who they were? One wonders. Another wonderment: Now what? The city's new legal eagles have some possibilities. "First the city can hold a referendum on whether the [$1.456 million] debt can be incurred," attorneys Meeker and Taylor wrote. "The second option would be to have a recreation authority created by the Georgia legislature through local legislation," the memo said. "If a recreation authority was established, that authority could then operate and manage both facilities and could also make provision for the existing [debt] of the development authority." Just like Mayor Brown has suggested. OK. It's time for the development authority to recognize reality and Georgia law and get cranking on getting out of the amphitheater and tennis center business. Backed by snarling anti-Brown advocates, the authority could embark on a fruitless legal challenge to established state and case law and continue spending money they don't have on an unwinnable position. Or the authority could face up to both legal and political reality and start ensuring a graceful exit from tasks it should never have embarked upon in the first place. A new city recreation authority will be lawfully entitled to operate the two facilities, and likely will do those jobs well. Tennis welfare as we know it may end, subjecting the several hundred members of the tennis club to steeper fees. Amphitheater tickets may go up. In both cases, financial reality requires that such specialized venues move toward self-sufficiency. In other words, as in any business, they should pay their own freight, carry their own weight, without being a drag on decreasing city tax revenues. Once this is past, the city can begin getting the much-needed TDK Boulevard extension under construction and the development authority can turn its primary attention back to its lawful primary business of attracting new industry to our county. Will that end the fractiousness in Peachtree City politics? One can only hope ....
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