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Short one, PTC Council passes on SPLOST vote

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

With councilman Stuart Kourajian absent, the Peachtree City City Council declined Thursday night to take a formal vote on the Fayette County Commission’s latest offer on the transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.

The county has offered to increase the “split” to 65 percent for the county only and 35 percent which will be split between the unincorporated county and the municipalities based on population. Peachtree City has counteroffered a 60-40 split.

With Peachtree City’s 60-40 proposal, the county would lose $3.4 million but would still raise $104.1 million with the penny sales tax over a six-year period, according to information from city officials. Peachtree City’s take would increase by $2.27 million, Fayetteville’s would increase by $802,000 and Tyrone would see an additional $281,000 compared to the current 65-35 county offer.

Councilman Steve Rapson said he wanted to focus on the facts of the SPLOST proposals because the recent discourse on the subject in the media seemed to stray from the issue.

“I don’t know if it’s about egos because it doesn’t seem to be about the SPLOST or roads,” Rapson said, adding that he supported the county’s transportation plan.

Rapson pointed out that if the SPLOST was distributed strictly by population, the city would be in line for $45.4 million instead of $18.2 under the city’s 60-40 proposal.

“Let’s just leave this out there for the citizens to make up their own minds,” Rapson said.

Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford said she would like council to accept the county’s offer on the SPLOST and focus on improving the various tax inequities where Peachtree City residents are paying county taxes for services they don’t receive from the county, such as recreation and fire/EMS.

Rutherford noted that the SPLOST would bring in more than $16 million for city transportation projects that otherwise wouldn’t be available.

“Yes, we would have $18 million,” under the city’s proposed split, Rutherford said. “But we could have $16 million or nothing.”

Rutherford added that there was no guarantee if the SPLOST failed that the county would vote to have a similar SPLOST next year.

Councilman Murray Weed argued, however, that the city deserved the $45 million it would get on a population basis and he considers it “selling out” to agree to receive just $16 million of the SPLOST pie under the county’s latest proposal.

Mayor Steve Brown has been a vocal opponent of the county’s SPLOST offer, saying they circumvented a new state law aimed at increasing fairness to municipalities by approving the SPLOST vote weeks before the new law took affect.