There has been some nonsense circulated about a recent meeting of the Tyrone Town Council and three Fayette County commissioners, including myself.

The County Commission, in a public meeting, authorized Greg Dunn to give Tyrone a contract regarding current and future funding. He did. He went to the Tyrone Council meeting to do so.

Some members of the council, including Mr. Letourneau, had publicly doubted the report of two other members of their council that the County Commission was making a decision to support Tyrone recreation again.

I say again because, in the past, Fayette County taxpayers had already put $600,000 or $700,000 into Tyrone Recreation in Shamrock Park. This was one reason why Commissioner Dunn went there, to present the proposed contract to them and inform them that the $18,000 was real.

In the past few years, Tyrone Council, including Mr. Letourneau, decided to do several things in their recreation department.

They built Redwine Park. This is a beautiful softball facility. But, [it] may have longer-term problems. It’s obvious that the fill used to construct this park was, at least partially, construction debris.

Anyone can go look at the slopes surrounding this park. There is concrete and metal debris all along these slopes. I pray that this proves to be the extent of debris problems, but I doubt that.

They built Handley Park. There have been many issues raised regarding the locating of this park and the construction. The town has recently had to pay (taxpayers’ money) to help dredge out Lake Pendleton into which it is alleged that erosion from the park had run. I pray, again, that this is the extent of these expenses for Tyrone taxpayers. But, I doubt it.

At the same time, the town appeared to have abandoned maintaining Shamrock Park. Equipment was removed to the other parks. Since the county paid for some of this equipment, one could argue that the county had indeed put money into these other parks!

The buildings and facilities in Shamrock Park were not maintained and were allowed to deteriorate. This wasn’t “just” county taxpayer financed facilities; they are Tyrone taxpayer facilities as well. Doubt me? Go look.

These are all reasons why some commissioners felt that the county could not and should not participate in recreation activity in Tyrone.

Then, a group of Tyrone citizens got together and has been working to clean up and fix up Shamrock Park. Two members of the Tyrone Council have been active in this effort, Grace Caldwell and Gloria Furr. Three members of the County Commission have been helping as well: Greg Dunn, Linda Wells and myself.

The local activities convinced us that (some of) Tyrone was committed to the recreation facilities we could support. Fayette County needs, and is obligated to, recreation facilities in the Tyrone area of the county.

The fact that the three members of the County Commission should come, independently, to a meeting of the Tyrone Council to inform them or witness the informing of them, that the county was willing to be re-involved in Tyrone Recreation is therefore no big surprise.

No, I didn’t see the other two commissioners at that council meeting. But, I didn’t see them out in Tyrone helping at Shamrock; I didn’t see them on July 4th when the fountain in the lake was dedicated; and I didn’t see them at other town council meetings.

I did see Greg and Linda there.

And, I didn’t see in the newspaper that these other commissioners were unhappy that they weren’t “invited” to help clean up the park.

Could those other commissioners have been informed that we would be attending this council meeting? I am not aware that it was ever a concern. The three of us going to this meeting was not a planned, formal visit by “The Commissioners” to which they could have been invited. If it had been one, then of course they should have been invited and I am sure that they would have!

And, I’ve thought of several snappy, entertaining, cute, and overwhelming responses to [the] claim that, for us to be in Tyrone constituted an illegal meeting. I’ll pass (I am still trying to grow up). I’ll just say that [that] is not correct.

Peter Pfeifer
County Commission Post 3
Peachtree City, Ga.

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