News | Peachtree City

PTC to consider fee hikes

Fri, 03/14/2008 - 3:55pm
By: John Munford

A variety of different fees charged by Peachtree City will likely be going up in the near future.

Last week the City Council tabled the matter to await a report on potential fees for the developmental services division, which was delayed due to a staffer’s absence for a family emergency.

But before the vote to table the issue, council got an earful on a proposal to charge all non-profit organizations between $20 to $30 to rent a room for meeting space.

Currently the city allows such groups to meet for free, assuming they take up a time when the room isn’t scheduled for use and they don’t use the same meeting date from month to month.

Several citizens, all members of the Peachtree City Civic Association, said the group wouldn’t be able to afford the cost. It was also noted that the association’s members all live in Peachtree City and already pay taxes.

City staff reported that new increased fines have been approved by the city court judge and are being implemented already.

Other fee changes proposed by staff include:

‰ A $1 increase for the in-county daily pool passes, which would net $15,000 a year;

‰ Increase family pool package rates by an average of 9 percent, adding about $4,000 a year; (the city would leave its out-of-county pool pass fees at double the in-county rate).

‰ Reducing the out-of-county fees for classes from 50 percent to 25 percent over the regular rate in an effort to increase participation;

‰ Charging $40-65 per hour for gym rental;

‰ Charging $25 for the first day of a solicitor’s permit and $10 each additional day in the same week; fees are paid to the police department;

‰ Eliminating the current $500 maximum fee for a building permit review by the city’s fire marshall and charging $100 for a second construction site follow-up visit and $150 for the third such visit.

Resident Lynda Wojcik said she’d like to see the city change the fee structure with instructors, who currently get 25 percent of the revenue from classes taught. She said she thought the figure could be reduced to 20 percent, but Leisure Services Director Randy Gaddo said he feared that would cause some of the best instructors to go elsewhere.

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Back Door Tax Increase
Submitted by new2ptc on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 1:15pm.

I offer a correction to Mr. Munford’s article. The City is not looking to charge $20 - $30 per meeting, but $20 - $30 per hour and the Kedron Fieldhouse rooms would cost $30 per hour. For a two hour monthly meeting the yearly cost would be $720 with no additional cost to the city since plenty of other activities are going on at the same time.

Were the rooms built to make money for the city? If so then what should be the charge for admission to a City Council Meeting?

This is a good example of a back door tax increase and the Council is looking to place more of a burden on organizations that work quietly and effectively for the community.

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Bake Sales?
TinCan's picture
Submitted by TinCan on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 1:52pm.

I'm a bit confounded by the reasoning being spouted regarding city facility fee implementation or increase. When the cost of maintaining facilities goes up, as it always does, why shouldn’t the facility users cover some of that cost? Since my taxes are already helping pay for facilities I don’t use, why should those taxes be raised to cover the increased costs? Maybe the city needs to start having bake sales to raise money for organizations to have free access.


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"No Cost" meeting rooms in PTC - here's two
Main Stream's picture
Submitted by Main Stream on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 1:40pm.

That's ridiculous to charge non-profit groups to rent rooms for their meetings.

I believe that the Kedron Kroger has a meeting room that the public can use free of charge. Also, the Starbucks on hwy. 54 has a fairly good size meeting room that can be reserved for free.

Anyone else know of no-cost meeting rooms the non-profits can use?


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Talk about nickel and diming
Submitted by TomCat on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 9:24pm.

This is totally outrageous that a city that promotes itself as 'community focussed' would take to charging non-profits for use of an empty, unused room. To put it simply, "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" This needs to be put to rest and fast. Like Mike King says, "It aint broke...." Come-on Doug, Don and Cindy - do the right thing.

"The Cat is loose...."

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Who's Kidding Who?
Mike King's picture
Submitted by Mike King on Fri, 03/14/2008 - 8:39pm.

Come now, all the so called savings to our town listed above do not come close to making any significant reduction toward a looming revenue shortfall. In fact, should a cost analysis be done to to illustrate the cost in real dollars of how much time and energy spent in formulating these proposals, it would show that the potential savings for the year would not pay for the man-hours it took for the city staff to compile it.

Are we as citizens going to stand by and tolerate a city staff charging groups such as the VFW to meet monthly at the Gathering Place? Surely not! If one was to take a hard look at organizations such as this, they would find that they do far more for the people of our city than most realize. Notwithstanding the fact that these are those who answered the call to take up arms and serve during times of war.

Mr Gaddo points out that should we charge folks upon whom his organization depends to provide services would simply go elsewhere. I believe he is correct and if pressed to respond, he just might say that this area is not broken, so why do we need to fix it.

Mr Mayor get a grip. It was you who proclaimed to be experienced in finance and after more than two years is it not time to take charge?


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City needs to follow Del Webb and others
Robert W. Morgan's picture
Submitted by Robert W. Morgan on Sat, 03/15/2008 - 5:29am.

Developers of large retirement communities run them like the small cities they actually are. They have everything except the bloated and useless elected and appointed government.

The way they look at public (or commonly-owned) facilities is that the more they are used the better. They actually create groups and encourage meetings because they realize that is the backbone of a vibrant community - the residents getting involved. Doesn't matter if it is a chess club or a class on using computers or a homeowner's association or a political party - meetings are good, the space is free and if the room is vacant after the first meeting - have another.

The dopes that propose these fees are trying to discourage meetings and you have to ask why. Is it the cost of clean-up? Or is it the content of the meeting and the agenda of the groups who would use the meeting space? Or is it just more government bungling?

Grow up and give it up. This is a stupid idea and not worth the backlash.


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