Friday, Dec. 24, 2004

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Dealing with unpaid bills

Dev. Auth. in financial limbo with little income, $1M lawsuit

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

With an eye on paying some overdue bills, the Development Authority of Peachtree City has selected Tyler Duffy as its treasurer.

Duffy will begin going through the past due invoices, which have piled up since the authority’s previous funding source, monthly payments from the city’s hotel-motel tax, was cut off late last year.

The authority received those payments when it operated the city’s tennis center and amphitheater. Now those payments are going to the city’s Tourism Association, which now operates both venues.

While the switch left the new authority members with little else to focus on but economic development issues, it also left them with the unpaid bills to various creditors and various legal difficulties.

The City Council has earmarked a percentage of its millage rate to the authority for ongoing bills, and it will receive roughly $30,000 this calendar year.

Duffy volunteered for the position at Tuesday night’s authority meeting, offering to get the bills sorted through. He said the authority needs to “look out who we have as creditors that are legitimate debts.”

It was also suggested by authority member Todd Strickland that the authority work on an inventory of its assets for accounting purposes. Chairman Scott Formel noted that with the pending lawsuits, the assets issue would be settled in court, “but clearly there are things we need to take care of.”

Strickland said he felt sort of “hypocritical” for being on board since February and not yet focusing on the authority’s financial picture, which was one of the chief criticisms of previous authorities.

The authority is also possibly on the hook for over $1 million in debt to Peachtree National Bank for loans for capital improvements for the tennis center and amphitheater in addition to operating capital. The bank has filed a lawsuit on the matter after unsuccessfully trying to convince the city council, which technically owns the venues, to pay off the loan.

None of the current authority members were on the board when the loans were secured. In fact, five of the seven members began serving Feb. 20 of this year.

In addition to naming Duffy the authority’s treasurer, Strickland was unanimously selected the authority’s secretary after volunteering for the position.

Duffy said since he has been on the board, chairman Scott Formel has been saddled with much of the duties and he hoped to take off some of the workload.

In other business, the authority discussed creating a presence on the Internet as offered by a committee of city and other local government agencies creating a one-stop portal for all things Peachtree City.

Betsy Tyler, the city’s public information officer, said the authority would determine the information it wants on the Web site, it got the group’s minds cooking.

Since one goal is to recruit corporate headquarters to locate here, one suggestion was to highlight success stories such as Cooper Lighting and World Airways to tout the city’s suitability for such projects.

The committee is working to create the web portal to consolidate all the various information on Peachtree City in one place, Tyler said. The city’s airport authority and water and sewerage authority, for example, will also have web pages on this proposed portal, Tyler said.

The idea is to present information that can be used by people who want to do business in or visit Peachtree City, she added.

The authority is also making plans for a survey of the city’s industrial park so it can determine what the needs of various industries and businesses are. Authority vice chairman Bill Bexley said the idea is to introduce the authority as a resource to help support local industries.