The Tyrone Town Council effectively decided Thursday night that a new police station would not be built anytime soon.

The Town Council instructed town attorney Dennis Davenport to rewrite the city’s impact fee ordinance to allow fees to only be collected for fire protection from the county and recreation purposes.

During a lengthy presentation, Davenport made it clear that impact fees could only be used to maintain a level of service that would be impacted by new growth in the town.

Currently, the town collects impact fees for public safety, fire, recreation and the library. In her analysis of the situation, town manager Chris Venice said the library project was already completed, and there was not enough money available for the town’s share to build a new police station.

But Venice said the amount of money being collected for recreation would allow the town to pursue some projects, so she recommended keeping the recreation portion of the impact fees.

The town’s current fee is $1,075 on a new home, and eliminating the public safety impact fee would probably cut $300 off the total.

The town is set to vote on the revised impact fee ordinance Aug.21.

In other matters, a lengthy discussion was held between the town’s staff and instructors who teach classes at the town’s recreation department.

The town collects 20 percent of the fee charged for each class, but finance chief Mary Sturm said that amount does not come anywhere close to recouping the amount of time the town’s staff puts into collecting the fees.

Initially, she had recommended each instructor paying an additional $25 per hour for each class taught, but the instructors said that would be a death knell for their classes.

Sturm then recommended that each instructor collect their own money and remit the 20 percent to the town, instead of the town having to do all the paperwork.

“During our budget process, we had to make some tough decisions, and it wouldn’t be fair not to try and get a handle on these costs,” said Councilman Eric Dial.

The instructors agreed to meet with the town’s staff to try and hammer out a compromise.

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