Last year in Tyrone can best be summarized by one word: contentious.

From battling council members and mayors to quarrelling over a sewerage system, Fayette's western-most town had a little something for everyone last year.

The biggest debate and what became a monthly spectacle was the divisive debate on the town council. At nearly every meeting during the year, Mayor Richard Santiago and councilman Bill Stone sat on one side of the issue while councilmen Ronnie Cannon, Lisa Richardson and Ray Bogenschutz took the opposite position.

One of the big debates in the early part of the year concerned changing the town's charter to allow the town manager to further expand his powers. Bogenschutz, Cannon and Richardson supported the proposal, but Santiago and Stone wanted most of the power in the mayoral seat.

The issue finally involved Sen. Lynn Westmoreland who drew up a resolution for the state legislature, but it was eventually decided the town's voters would decide the issue in Nov. The voters decided to stay with the current strong mayor form of government.

Another rift came when Santiago refused to reappoint John Mrosek as town attorney in the early summer. The town went for nearly two months without an attorney before Cannon proposed a compromise that allowed Brad Sears to be appointed attorney until this week.

When the new council convenes this week, they will have an opportunity to reappoint Sears for the full term until June or appoint another attorney. The council will also have the opportunity to reappoint the Planning Commission since the council tabled reappointing the group after Santiago refused to recommend reappointing Lynn Redwood at the last meeting of 1998.

Another contentious issue that divided the town last year was sewerage. With a 262 home development being proposed by John Wieland and a large office park planned for Ga. Highway 74, the town started realizing it was time to get serious about a sewerage system.

Town manager Barry Amos presented the council a comprehensive study that outlined the several sewerage options the town could do.

With cost estimates ranging from zero for doing nothing to nearly $17 million for providing sewerage for the new developments and the older part of town, the town leaders never did come to a consensus on what to do.

The town also got into a dispute with the Fayette County Board of Education over possibly purchasing the board's Sandy Creek wastewater treatment facility. Richard Bowers, who is developing the large office park on Hwy. 74 offered to pay for an appraisal of the facility. Shortly after Bower's offer, the school board rescinded the possible sale offer and said it could not approve of the appraiser Bowers wanted to use.

By year's end, the board and town officials were trying to get talks back on track for purchasing the system.

Later in the year, Amos told the council that the town was rapidly outgrowing its facilities and would need to establish a capital improvement fund to build new parks, a new police station and administrative complex. The new structures will be partly funded by an $1,075 impact fee that will be placed on all new residential lots in the town.