Peachtree City Council members agree that the county's old Kelly Drive Water Treatment Plant site is an eyesore and should be sold or leased to the city for recreation land, council member Annie McMenamin said Tuesday at a joint meeting of the council with the Fayette County Commission.

County Administrator Billy Beckett admitted that the county's current uses of the property are "unsightly," and said he would be amenable to discussing another location for maintenance and storage in the Peachtree City area. The county property is locked within the Peachtree City limits, McMenamin said, and has been her personal crusade "with every county commission chairman except Harold (Bost), and that's only because I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet."

Bost joked that "my feelings are hurt," but assured McMenamin that he is open to discussing solutions to the site, which is fenced with chain-link (prohibited by city ordinances) and located near a residential area. So far, the two governmental bodies have been unable to agree on a price for the land, Beckett said, but added that he is favorable to City Manager Jim Basinger's proposal for several independent real estate persons to evaluate the land and arrive at a price between the city's appraisal and the county's appraisal.

In a discussion of land uses around the city, particularly along the Ga. Highway 54 corridor between Fayetteville and Peachtree City, commissioner Greg Dunn said the county did not intend to "band" the city borders with shopping centers. The county is studying its land use plan, Dunn said, but "we are cognizant of what the confluence (of the city-county borders) has to look like."

Commissioner Herb Frady raised a question about the city's proposed annexation of about 1200 acres on the city's west side, asking whether rumors about "955 water connections on 450 acres" was true. Mayor Bob Lenox replied that the "ownership group" from the area had been told that no plan would be accepted for annexation into the city unless it would be zoned to provide "no more than 1500 residences within that whole 1200 acres."

Dunn said the board is more at ease now about notification of sewage spills since he attended a meeting in which Water and Sewer Authority Manager Larry Turner explained how word will be disseminated in the future. A brief discussion of dredging Lake Peachtree took the direction that city and county attorneys are still hammering out definitions and timelines for the county's actions.

"We want to do the right thing, and we know you want us to do the right thing," Beckett said, "but I think the timing will be critical, since we have to think about how we are going to supply water while the dredging is in progress."

Both Lenox and Bost said the meeting was an important first step in greater cooperation between the county and its largest municipality. Frady, a former mayor of Peachtree City, called the meeting "unprecedented."

"I'll tell you, this wouldn't have happened a few years ago," Frady said. "Communication is the most important tool we have, and if we don't use it, we all suffer. I think this was great." All council members and commissioners were present, plus Beckett, Basinger and City Clerk Nancy Faulkner.