The warring factions of the Peachtree City Council will

put their differences aside late Sunday night to try and agree on a last-minute

effort to keep the city tennis center and amphitheater operational into

the new year.

The contract with the Development Authority of Peachtree

City to manage the venues expires at midnight Sunday; the council will

meet at approximately 9 p.m. at City Hall to vote on a plan for the city

to take on the Development Authority's fulltime employees as contracted

workers through at least mid-January.

The timing of the meeting is unavoidable because several

members of the council won't be returning from Thanksgiving travels

until Sunday night.

The 11th-hour solution to the bitter Council impasse was

the idea of Mayor Steve Brown, whose reputation during his two years in

office has been labeled divisive more often than reconciliatory.

Brown's "Stop Gap Measure" would buy time

for working through the unanswered questions that remain if the new Peachtree

City Tourism Association (PCTA) is to eventually take over management

of the ampitheater and tennis center, originally scheduled for Monday.

It would also require that the PCTA pay the city's

contingency fund back for the expense of the contracted workers'

salaries. No benefits or insurance payments would be included, with employees

taking on that responsibility themselves - at least temporarily -

via COBRA.

The haste to get the PCTA up and running concerned councilmembers

Annie McMenamin and Dan Tennant, both of whom voted against appointing

City Manager Bernard McMullen and councilmen Steve Rapson and Murray Weed

to the tourism board of directors at the Nov. 6 council meeting.

But the motion by Brown passed anyway, with the mayor,

Rapson and Weed approving the appointments, and McMenamin and Tennant

voting against.

When the required PCTA management contract and 2004 operating

budgets for the amphitheater and tennis center were to be considered by

the full council again on Nov. 20, Tennant and McMenamin announced they

would remain absent from that meeting and all council sessions where PCTA

business was to be considered through the end of the year, when each leaves

office.

Rapson and Weed countered by declaring they would refuse

to attend any city council meetings at which the PCTA business was not

included on the agenda.

Rapson called the stand by McMenamin and Tennant "political

blackmail," while the two outgoing councilmembers insisted they were

taking the bold stand to preserve the integrity of the city.

"I've never been opposed to attending any meeting

to keep the city's business going," said McMenamin, who ends

13-plus years on the council this term. "I think it's silly.

We need to continue."

Should the council adopt Brown's temporary solution,

the responsiblity of the employees would shift to the city at 12:01 a.m.

Monday. Brown estimated it will take until at least until Jan. 16 for

details of the PCTA contract to be considered by a newly seated council.