Well, Ollie, it's a fine mess

you've got us in.

Laurel and Hardy slapstick

comedies come to mind with the latest chapter in the Peachtree City Tennis

Center mess.

The new city attorneys and

the city's bond attorney have issued an opinion that in effect says, Steve

Brown was right.

Turns out the city's autonomous

development authority is operating both the new tennis center and the

Fred Brown Amphitheater in violation of state law and a Georgia Supreme

Court ruling.

Further, state law prohibits

the city from picking up the authority's $1.456 million debt, according

to the Jan. 3 opinion from Theodore P. Meeker, III, the city attorney,

and Earle R. Taylor, III, the city's attorney for borrowing issues.

In addition to state law against

a city assuming debt of an authority, the state's constitution "also

prohibits the city from 'assuming' or 'paying' the authority's debts without

the assent of a majority of the city's qualified voters," the attorneys

wrote.

The attorneys said even an

intergovernmental agreement between the two parties can't get around the

rules. "In summary, it is doubtful that the development authority

is authorized by law to operate or manage either the tennis center or

amphitheater on behalf of the city," the city's attorneys wrote.

So, the grand experiment fashioned

under the reign of Mayor Bob Lenox in the early 1990s of having an industrial

development authority run an entertainment venue and later an exclusive

tennis center however successful or unsuccessful that role may be adjudged

today is just simply unlawful.

Some questions arise.

How did we get into this mess?

Why didn't previous city and bond attorneys do a little legal research

to find out whether such facilities could be operated by an appointed

group supposedly created to bring new industry to town?

The laws and cases cited in

the Jan. 3 memo to the city seem overwhelmingly to shout, "You can't

do this!"

Were the previous rulers and

authorities so insulated from reality outside Peachtree City that they

either ignored the laws and rulings or did they suppose regally that they

could get away with it just because of who they were?

One wonders.

Another wonderment: Now what?

The city's new legal eagles

have some possibilities.

"First the city can hold

a referendum on whether the [$1.456 million] debt can be incurred,"

attorneys Meeker and Taylor wrote.

"The second option would

be to have a recreation authority created by the Georgia legislature through

local legislation," the memo said. "If a recreation authority

was established, that authority could then operate and manage both facilities

and could also make provision for the existing [debt] of the development

authority."

Just like Mayor Brown has suggested.

OK. It's time for the development

authority to recognize reality and Georgia law and get cranking on getting

out of the amphitheater and tennis center business. Backed by snarling

anti-Brown advocates, the authority could embark on a fruitless legal

challenge to established state and case law and continue spending money

they don't have on an unwinnable position.

Or the authority could face

up to both legal and political reality and start ensuring a graceful exit

from tasks it should never have embarked upon in the first place.

A new city recreation authority

will be lawfully entitled to operate the two facilities, and likely will

do those jobs well. Tennis welfare as we know it may end, subjecting the

several hundred members of the tennis club to steeper fees. Amphitheater

tickets may go up.

In both cases, financial reality

requires that such specialized venues move toward self-sufficiency. In

other words, as in any business, they should pay their own freight, carry

their own weight, without being a drag on decreasing city tax revenues.

Once this is past, the city

can begin getting the much-needed TDK Boulevard extension under construction

and the development authority can turn its primary attention