The Coweta County Commission decided Tuesday night to rejoin the Chattahoochee-Flint Regional Development Center after being “thrown out” of the organization last month.

The long, simmering fight between Coweta County and the Chattahoochee-Flint Regional Development Center came to a head last month when the board members of the planning agency voted to kick Coweta County and the city of LaGrange out of the organization.

The board voted to kick out and not allow members to vote who were not current with their dues. Coweta County has withheld nearly $41,000 in 1999 dues from the organization in a protest over the city of LaGrange not paying dues for the last four years.

“They [LaGrange] said they're current because they've paid dues for 1999, but they still owe for 1996, 1997 and 1998,” said Commissioner Vernon “Mutt” Hunter who attended the board meeting.

Since LaGrange has now been removed from the organization and can't receive any services from the planning group unless the services are state-mandated, Hunter asked the county to now pay its back dues and get back in the organization.

During Tuesday night's meeting, county administrator Theron Gay explained that Coweta County was paying for the bulk of the increase in the center's yearly budget.

“Since 1994, the group's yearly fees have increased $29,000 a year from governments because of population increases. Coweta County is paying $17,000 of that increase,” Gay said.

Commissioner Robert Wood said the county had grown the fastest, but had also hired more staff so they were not using the services of the planning agency like they used to.

“We need to assess the services to each county,” he said.

The county currently pays .85 for each citizen to the organization, and Commissioner Vernon “Mutt” Hunter said that issue needs to be changed.

“We set it up that way years ago, and we can change it,” he said.

The main problem Hunter has with the increased dues is that Coweta County is essentially contributing money for Chatt.-Flint to find matching grants for other counties and none of the money is coming back to the county.

The county voted to send Commissioner Jim McGuffey back to the next meeting and pay the dues, but also make Coweta County's feelings known to the other agencies.

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