Fayette

County commissioners have scheduled a public

hearing on proposed impact fees to pay for a new

jail and for fire services, and may go forward

with or without the town of Tyrone.

County

Commission Chairman Harold Bost fired verbal

volleys at the town with both barrels during the

commission's regular meeting Thursday, and

suggested that the county should refuse space in

the jail for the town's prisoners if the town

doesn't participate in collecting the impact

fees.

Furthermore,

maybe it's time Tyrone had its own fire service

as well, Bost suggested.

Commissioners

are asking local cities to collect impact fees

(charged to developers to help pay the cost of

new facilities made necessary by growth) to help

pay for the $25 million jail project. Tyrone also

is being asked to collect impact fees for fire

service improvements, because the town is in the

county's fire service special tax district.

City

and county leaders have been negotiating the

details of a formula for collection of the fees

for about two months, with each round of

discussions followed by a new proposed formula.

But

town officials failed to respond to the latest

formula proposed last week. Bost said he talked

with Mayor Sheryl Lee and was told that the

county's requests for input "have never been

brought back up" in discussions of the Town

Council.

He

said he told Lee, "Maybe now is the time

Tyrone should take over its own fire services,

and maybe y'all want to build your own

jail."

"We

cannot allow the rest of the county to be held

hostage to the city of Tyrone," Bost told

his fellow commissioners Thursday.

Town

Councilman Ronnie Cannon has been vocal in his

opposition to any forward motion on the county's

impact fee requests until the county moves

forward on local cities' claims that their

residents pay more in taxes than they receive in

services.

The

issues are completely separate, Bost said, and

should be dealt with separately. "We have no

other option but to proceed to see what we can do

without Tyrone," he said.

Commissioner

Greg Dunn said Tyrone's stance is

"frustrating," but said, "I hold

out hope that we'll be able to resolve the

matter."

If

not, he added, "The ultimate result will be

that all the citizens of Fayette County will pay

a little more in their taxes to pay for the

jail."

Commissioners

voted 3-2, with Herb Frady and Glen Gosa opposed,

to schedule a public hearing on impact fees for

the group's Aug. 24 meeting in hopes that a final

formula can be arrived at by then.

Frady

has been opposed to the plan to use bonds to pay

for the jail and pay them back with a combination

of impact fees and property tax increases,

arguing that the county should put a special

purpose local option sales tax on the ballot

instead.

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