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PTC Council sour about SPLOST split

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@thecitizennews.com

Although no vote was taken Thursday night, it sounds collectively like the Peachtree City Council isn’t convinced they should accept the county commission’s latest offer on a proposed $131 million road tax.

The one-cent special local option sales tax (SPLOST) will be on the November general election ballot.

Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford was the only voice at the council meeting in favor of accepting the 65-35 split proposed by the county. Under the split, the city would get more than $16 million for road and other transportation improvements.

Rutherford said that’s a lot better than getting no money for city transportation improvements.

Councilman Murray Weed countered that the council should try and get more because if the SPLOST take was distributed on a population basis, Peachtree City would get $45.4 million of the SPLOST revenue.

Of course, the SPLOST won’t take effect unless it is approved by voters during the November elections.

Under the city’s proposed 60-40 split, Peachtree City would get an additional $2.27 million, while the county would lose $3.4 million, lowering the county’s overall take from $107 million to $104.1 million.

No vote was taken on the matter since Councilman Stuart Kourajian was not present at the meeting. Council decided to wait until its next meeting to vote on the county’s latest proposal.

Councilman Steve Rapson noted that the difference between the city’s proposed 60-40 split and the county’s 65-35 is $3.39 million of the projected $131.9 million total the tax would raise. He said he wanted to stick to the facts during the meeting, but he took issue with how some of the issue has been portrayed in political circles.

“When you talk about Peachtree City not working with the county, I find that statement unacceptable,” Rapson said. He noted that some Peachtree City residents questioned why he would agree to a 60-40 split and he had to explain to them that the county needed the improvements the SPLOST would fund.

Mayor Steve Brown said he was concerned that the county commission could yank funding of all county-planned transportation projects for Peachtree City once the SPLOST is approved.

Brown noted that a similar situation happened in Rome, but officials said that could be avoided by having the city and county enter an intergovernmental agreement on how the SPLOST revenues would be disbursed.

Brown and Commission Chairman Greg Dunn have clashed over the SPLOST, in person and in print through media accounts of the issue.

Rapson, for his part, said he would have rather dealt with the SPLOST issue in another fashion.

“My position would have been to send a polite ‘no, thank you’ and not debate this in the public,” Rapson said. “... We should have settled this behind the scenes.”