Fayette County

and Peachtree City have reached agreement on housing the city's prisoners

at the Fayette County Jail, and Fayetteville Monday night signaled its

willingness to join in that agreement.

County commissioners

last week unanimously authorized Chairman Greg Dunn to sign the agreement

that Peachtree City Council approved late last month.

Under the agreement,

the county will charge $43.70 per day for holding Peachtree City's prisoners.

But the agreement

allows for a certain number of inmates to be charged at a reduced rate

of $30 based on the city's average daily inmate population for the previous

fiscal year.

Following Fayetteville's

approval of the agreement, county officials continue to negotiate with

leaders from Tyrone in attempts to reach a similar agreement. Dunn said

this week the county hopes to put the same agreement in place, making

it retroactive to Jan. 1.

If no agreement

is reached, the county will begin billing Tyrone at the $43.70 daily rate

"within a few weeks," he said.

A sharp dispute

over the matter arose early in 2001 when the County Commission put the

three cities on 12 months notice that it would not renew a 1994 contract

that obligates the county to house municipal prisoners those sentenced

to jail time by the municipal courts at no charge.

City leaders,

already embroiled in a dispute with the county over how tax money is divided,

reacted angrily, saying their residents already pay for operation of the

jail through taxes paid to the county, and the city courts contribute

as well, through surcharges. County officials countered that the surcharges

are set aside for construction and don't contribute to operation of the

jail, and said taxes paid by residents don't cover the costs of daily

operation completely.

Several attempts

during 2001 to write a new jail agreement in joint meetings with officials

of all three cities broke down, and the county declared that it would

no longer negotiate in joint sessions but wanted to talk with each city

individually.

As the expiration

date for the agreement Dec. 31, 2001 approached, city leaders made known

their intention to include the jail dispute in court-ordered mediation

talks on the larger tax equity dispute. County officials said they had

no intentions of combining the two debates, but last month an agreement

surfaced at a special called Peachtree City Council meeting.

In ordering

mediation of the tax equity dispute, Judge Stephen Boswell had ordered

that the talks be conducted in secret and that none of the participants

talk about the discussions.

Commission

Chairman Dunn said Monday that the jail dispute was negotiated as part

of the tax equity mediation.

The Citizen

had filed a lawsuit asking that the mediation be halted until it can be

determined whether the mediation hearings should be open to the public,

but a hearing on that case is not scheduled until Feb. 21. State law allows

only 60 days for mediation, and that deadline passed Friday with no agreement

being reached.