I don't know much about this matter but, from what I have learned here, I cannot help but wonder if there are some legal issues that can be pursued.

1. Although there may not be a criminal case, is there a civil case against the responsible parties for breach of their fiduciary duty to the tax payers and/or the municipal corporation of PTC (remember that a corporation is a "person" within the meaning of the law)?

2. Elected officials are covered by sovereign immunity only to the extent that they are acting within their conferred authority. An authority is only covered by qualified immunity when exercising powers within the grant of authority from the government that created it. Might some of the members of the authority and/or the bank board be liable personally (as in, their house, their cars, their stock holdings, etc.) if any of their actions are not covered by immunity?

I don't have the answers to those questions. I'm just thinking aloud.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

This kind of crap happens when you get a bunch of guy who think they can get away with anything under the sun.

You can do an advanced search through some Internet media services and find these. I listed only the two articles below because they are more applicable to the story above. This should answer bad_ptc's questions.

Wednesday, January 8, 2003
PTC Authority contracts may be illegal
By JOHN MUNFORD

A new legal opinion from Peachtree City's new municipal attorney and its bond counsel questions whether the city's development authority can legally operate the city's tennis center and amphitheater under its current contracts with the city.

Georgia law, which delineates the powers of development authorities, doesn't "appear" to "authorize a development authority to own, operate or manage an amphitheater or tennis center," according to the opinion from city attorney Theodore P. Meeker III and bond attorney Earle R. Taylor III.

The attorneys also indicated the city can "assume" the authority's current $1.456 million in debt only by creating a recreational authority to issue revenue bonds to repay the debt, or by holding a referendum to allow voters to approve a bond issue or by funding the debt through the city's bricks and mortar program and having the city assume operations of both facilities.

The city council and the authority had been in negotiations over how to pay for the authority's debt, part of it incurred by the recent tennis center expansion.

The authority planned to retire its debt over a 20-year period after council under then-Mayor Bob Lenox agreed in 2001 to guarantee the authority $265,000 a year from the city's hotel-motel tax revenues. The majority of the facilities budgets are funded by revenues from ticket sales, memberships and court fees but the hotel-motel tax funds have been used to subsidize operations also.

Incoming Mayor Steve Brown raised objections to the funding method and questioned the legality of the authority's management contracts for operating the tennis center and the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater.

Last month, the authority announced it was hiking user fees and ticket prices at both facilities to lessen the reliance on the hotel-motel tax funding.

Tate Godfrey, chairman of the Development Authority of Peachtree City, said if he felt comfortable about the venue's future in the hands of the current city leadership, he "might not have a problem in seeing if someone else can take them" and operate both facilities. But Godfrey said he lacks the comfort level he's seeking, particularly with the rumors that Brown wants authority executive director Virgil Christian fired.

Brown previously denied that he was "out" to get Christian, but several weeks ago he called for Christian and all the authority members to resign because of what Brown called financial mismanagement. Brown has also referred to Christian as "the highest paid public official in the county."

"I feel like there's another agenda here to do something with these facilities," Godfrey said. "I just find it odd that after 10 or 12 years of doing this it's improper. Why didn't the bankers, lawyers and politicians say anything about this before?"

Godfrey said Tuesday that he hadn't seen the opinion from Meeker and Taylor but the authority would "evaluate it when we see it and go from there."

"I don't know what the city plans to do with this," Godfrey said.
Authority members have argued the tennis center and amphitheater are being operated legally because they help develop trade, commerce, industry and employment opportunities in the city. Both facilities are used to entertain industrial and business prospects and both are also shown to industrial and business prospects in tours of Peachtree City.

Currently, the authority manages the tennis center and amphitheater operations in exchange for monthly payments from the city's hotel-motel tax fund to subsidize both venues along with economic development initiatives. Both operations have been running at a deficit in recent years.

Last year, Mayor Brown asked the authority to cut back its dependence on the hotel-motel tax. Since then, representatives of the authority and council hammered out a new agreement that would cut the authority's share of hotel-motel tax funds by $85,000 this year to $180,000. Next year, the authority's take would be capped at a maximum of $140,000, but it would actually receive 15.113 percent of the hotel-motel tax collections.

In the third year, the authority must set a goal of reducing its hotel-motel tax funds to a maximum of $100,000.
The authority also stipulated in the agreement that it will no longer seek long-term debt to fund projects for the tennis center or amphitheater; instead, any such projects must be funded by the city.
That agreement, however, depends on the city assuming the authority's indebtedness, most of which was used to improve the tennis center and amphitheater, which are both owned by the city. Otherwise, the authority might be left with a significant cut in funding and no way to pay its loans back.

Although most of the authority's current $1.45 million in debt was for capital improvements, a portion of it is for operating expenses. The authority uses a revolving line of credit to pay expenses in months when revenue dwindles. Those funds are repaid again on a seasonal basis such as when summer concert season tickets are purchased at the amphitheater and when the tennis center gets its membership revenues.

Meeker and Taylor also indicated they were willing to meet with the development authority and its attorney to discuss their opinions in detail and "consider any contrary viewpoints that can be offered ... in an effort to clarify and resolve the issues addressed in this memo."

Members of the development authority are Tate Godfrey, Brian Palmitessa, Bob Brooks, Scott Bradshaw, Belinda Sward, Scott Formel and Doug Warner

Wednesday, January 8, 2003
Turns out, Mayor Brown was right . . .
By CAL BEVERLY
Publisher

Well, Ollie, it's a fine mess you've got us in.
Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedies come to mind with the latest chapter in the Peachtree City Tennis Center mess.

The new city attorneys and the city's bond attorney have issued an opinion that in effect says, Steve Brown was right.
Turns out the city's autonomous development authority is operating both the new tennis center and the Fred Brown Amphitheater in violation of state law and a Georgia Supreme Court ruling.
Further, state law prohibits the city from picking up the authority's $1.456 million debt, according to the Jan. 3 opinion from Theodore P. Meeker, III, the city attorney, and Earle R. Taylor, III, the city's attorney for borrowing issues.
In addition to state law against a city assuming debt of an authority, the state's constitution "also prohibits the city from 'assuming' or 'paying' the authority's debts without the assent of a majority of the city's qualified voters," the attorneys wrote.
The attorneys said even an intergovernmental agreement between the two parties can't get around the rules. "In summary, it is doubtful that the development authority is authorized by law to operate or manage either the tennis center or amphitheater on behalf of the city," the city's attorneys wrote.

So, the grand experiment fashioned under the reign of Mayor Bob Lenox in the early 1990s of having an industrial development authority run an entertainment venue and later an exclusive tennis center however successful or unsuccessful that role may be adjudged today is just simply unlawful.

Some questions arise.
How did we get into this mess? Why didn't previous city and bond attorneys do a little legal research to find out whether such facilities could be operated by an appointed group supposedly created to bring new industry to town?

The laws and cases cited in the Jan. 3 memo to the city seem overwhelmingly to shout, "You can't do this!"

Were the previous rulers and authorities so insulated from reality outside Peachtree City that they either ignored the laws and rulings or did they suppose regally that they could get away with it just because of who they were?
One wonders.

Another wonderment: Now what?
The city's new legal eagles have some possibilities.
"First the city can hold a referendum on whether the [$1.456 million] debt can be incurred," attorneys Meeker and Taylor wrote.
"The second option would be to have a recreation authority created by the Georgia legislature through local legislation," the memo said. "If a recreation authority was established, that authority could then operate and manage both facilities and could also make provision for the existing [debt] of the development authority."
Just like Mayor Brown has suggested.

OK. It's time for the development authority to recognize reality and Georgia law and get cranking on getting out of the amphitheater and tennis center business. Backed by snarling anti-Brown advocates, the authority could embark on a fruitless legal challenge to established state and case law and continue spending money they don't have on an unwinnable position.

Or the authority could face up to both legal and political reality and start ensuring a graceful exit from tasks it should never have embarked upon in the first place.

A new city recreation authority will be lawfully entitled to operate the two facilities, and likely will do those jobs well. Tennis welfare as we know it may end, subjecting the several hundred members of the tennis club to steeper fees. Amphitheater tickets may go up.

In both cases, financial reality requires that such specialized venues move toward self-sufficiency. In other words, as in any business, they should pay their own freight, carry their own weight, without being a drag on decreasing city tax revenues.

Once this is past, the city can begin getting the much-needed TDK Boulevard extension under construction and the development authority can turn its primary attention back to its lawful primary business of attracting new industry to our county.

Will that end the fractiousness in Peachtree City politics? One can only hope ....

PTC hands DAPC probe to GBI

Why are the tax payers liable for the people that acted outside of their appointed authority?

They were not acting in the best interest of the city nor were they granted authority to enter into a transaction that obligated the city.

The bank knows this.

If the city ends up paying anything, I better see a lawsuit against those responsible.

I, as a tax payer, vote to have the city hire competent council and challenge this in the court system.

If nothing else, I would require the city to enter into non-binding arbitration before writing a $1,000,000.00 cheque.

I also want an independent audit of the banks books to verify that they haven't written this loss of on their taxes.

I'm not familiar with this specific case, but I am familiar with Development Authorities as a whole.
These are an appointed group of people with the authority to obligate "taxpayers" money and have no one to answer to. If they screw up, they just may not get appointed next time.
These authorities can grant tax incentives, promise "free services", grant exemptions, etc.... all in the name of progress or "bringing business to the area".
But let me explain what they really do. Lets say a piece of land is sitting in the industrial area and is owned by, oh, lets just say Group IV as an example. They have a prospect to purchase this land but need some incentivies granted, so they go to the "Development Authority". They're granted these incentives in the name of "bringing in new jobs". However, some outside company builds the building. All top level jobs are transferred in by the new company and the only thing left are low hourly jobs, usually taken by non-PTC folks. So, the PTC taxpayers get stuck with the costs (free taxes, free services, development of water, roads, sewerage, etc.) PTC gets stuck with additional traffic from outside the county to fill the low paying jobs so additional police staff are needed. Group IV (remember, this is just an example) gets to sell their land at a premium and the buyer gets one heck of a deal.

This is why I don't like Development Authorities.... I'm sure if you dig deep enough into this, you'll find someone that benefited nicely from this Tennis Center deal... and you can bet it wasn't the PTC taxpayers who now have to pony up to a $920,407 payout.

Just my personal opinion... your mileage may vary.

I have been a resident of PTC for almost 20 years. I had nothing to do with, no say in the matter, and our city government had no assumption of fiduciary responsibility when the bank made a bad loan to DAPC. This was a non-tranparent back room deal that went sour. So why should we city taxpayers be on the hook for someone else's errors? Those running around saying that the city should do "the right thing" are placating those big business pockets that put them in office. The bottom line is that I, nor any taxpayer has any legal liability for this, and that should be well stated and noted. Before there is a vote to make legal restitution, which is what the meeting is all about, let's have an open discussion with the debate focused on the legality of city's liability. Let's not run off to pay something that we do not have to pay.

But if the city owes the money, the city should offer a settlement. That way you pay what you owe under terms you can live with. Otherwise you go to court, spend an extra $500,000 on attorney's fees (even more if the judge and jury figure you should pay the plantiff's attorneys as well) and still lose.

So, congratulations on doing the smart thing. Glad Harold and the adults are in charge. At least we won't have to listen to Brown's tortured defense of "the development authority is not the city" - or something like that. That's the kind of nonsense that gets you laughed at in court by a judge and a jury consisting of business owners and others who have real jobs and mortgages and understand how the real world actually works.

Settle it and move on and we can forget our 4-year nightmare under Brown and enjoy our wonderful city without the hysterical and immature behavior.
meow

For a building and buisnss that was poorly constructed and is barely worth the land it is built on??

If this were a viable well planned buisness the bank would have foreclosed on it 2yrs ago, and been running it at a profit.

All of this to help out a shoddy group of low life developers?