Friday, November 28, 2003
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Friday, November 28, 2003 |
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The 11th hour - literally Council sets Sunday night meeting to solve venue problems By J. FRANK LYNCH The warring factions of the Peachtree City Council will put their differences aside late Sunday night to try and agree on a last-minute effort to keep the city tennis center and amphitheater operational into the new year. The contract with the Development Authority of Peachtree City to manage the venues expires at midnight Sunday; the council will meet at approximately 9 p.m. at City Hall to vote on a plan for the city to take on the Development Authority’s fulltime employees as contracted workers through at least mid-January. The timing of the meeting is unavoidable because several members of the council won’t be returning from Thanksgiving travels until Sunday night. The 11th-hour solution to the bitter Council impasse was the idea of Mayor Steve Brown, whose reputation during his two years in office has been labeled divisive more often than reconciliatory. Brown’s “Stop Gap Measure” would buy time for working through the unanswered questions that remain if the new Peachtree City Tourism Association (PCTA) is to eventually take over management of the ampitheater and tennis center, originally scheduled for Monday. It would also require that the PCTA pay the city’s contingency fund back for the expense of the contracted workers’ salaries. No benefits or insurance payments would be included, with employees taking on that responsibility themselves — at least temporarily — via COBRA. The haste to get the PCTA up and running concerned councilmembers Annie McMenamin and Dan Tennant, both of whom voted against appointing City Manager Bernard McMullen and councilmen Steve Rapson and Murray Weed to the tourism board of directors at the Nov. 6 council meeting. But the motion by Brown passed anyway, with the mayor, Rapson and Weed approving the appointments, and McMenamin and Tennant voting against. When the required PCTA management contract and 2004 operating budgets for the amphitheater and tennis center were to be considered by the full council again on Nov. 20, Tennant and McMenamin announced they would remain absent from that meeting and all council sessions where PCTA business was to be considered through the end of the year, when each leaves office. Rapson and Weed countered by declaring they would refuse to attend any city council meetings at which the PCTA business was not included on the agenda. Rapson called the stand by McMenamin and Tennant “political blackmail,” while the two outgoing councilmembers insisted they were taking the bold stand to preserve the integrity of the city. “I’ve never been opposed to attending any meeting to keep the city’s business going,” said McMenamin, who ends 13-plus years on the council this term. “I think it’s silly. We need to continue.” Should the council adopt Brown’s temporary solution, the responsiblity of the employees would shift to the city at 12:01 a.m. Monday. Brown estimated it will take until at least until Jan. 16 for details of the PCTA contract to be considered by a newly seated council.
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