Friday, February 20, 2004
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Friday, February 20, 2004 |
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County cuts Grantville off from using 911 for administrative calls By JOHN THOMPSON Coweta County delivered on its earlier ultimatum and decided not to allow Grantville to use the county’s 911 service for non-emergency calls. The County Commission said Tuesday the problem had existed for years and they were tired of issuing edicts that were ignored. The county thought they had a worked out a deal with Grantville and Senoia to deal with the administrative calls. The county proposed each entity pay $47,000 towards the cost of dispatchers to field the calls. “I talked with the mayor of Senoia this morning and he said they were on board,” said county administrator Theron Gay. On Monday night, the Senoia City Council forwarded a copy of the contract with the county to their attorney for his perusal. The council did not formally approve the contract, but indicated if all the small details could be worked out, they would move forward with the deal. Gay said Grantville wanted to seek arbitration on the case, which could take up to eight weeks. “I’m not going to penalize Senoia because of Grantville,” Commission Chairman Vernon “Mutt” Hunter said. Commissioner Greg Tarbutton, who represents Grantville, said the county had to treat everybody fair, and it would not be right to make Senoia pay for the service, while Grantville avoided the charges. Attorney Mitch Powell told the commission that he believes if the county was challenged by Grantville, they would win. “The E-911 service was set up for just emergency calls,” he said. Commissioner Robert Wood agreed, and said that the county had actually been breaking the law for years, by handling the city’s administrative calls, such as tag checks.
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