Peachtree City Post 1 Councilman-elect

Judi-ann Rutherford will quit her job as office manager of the Frederick

Brown Jr. Amphitheater effective Jan. 2, 2004, a necessity if she is to

be sworn into office the following Monday.

Her unemployment might be short-lived,

however: Rutherford plans to reapply for the job once the venue management

transfers from the city to the hands of the Peachtree City Tourism Association,

possibly as soon as Jan. 16. The contract between the employees and city

is good only through Jan. 17.

"I will resign effective

Jan. 2," said Rutherford on Tuesday, the day after she and more than

a dozen other full-time former employees of the city Development Authority

found themselves reclassified as contracted city workers.

City statutes prohibit employees

from serving on the council. The transfer in employer status was made

necessary when council members Annie McMenamin and Dan Tennant derailed

efforts to get the PCTA up and running by midnight Dec. 1.

The two council members declared

their intent Nov. 20 to be absent from the remaining two meetings of their

terms if PCTA items were included on the agendas, effectively forcing

any official action on the tourism association into next year.

Rutherford bears no grudge.

"Nobody knew this was

coming," she said. "It's just another thing that's

happened in a long line of things, and it's not over yet."

In the days leading up to the

Nov. 4 election, and then again in the three weeks of campaigning in a

runoff against opponent Lee H. Poolman, Rutherford insisted time and again

that her potential conflict was very clear: She was not a city employee,

and she could not vote on issues related to the finances of the amphitheater.

That position was backed up

Manager Bernard McMullen prior to the election that the potential for

conflict can't overrule the rights of a citizen to run for public

office.

She will still abstain on business

items related to the venues and the tourism association, even during the

time she is unemployed, Rutherford said.

"I do intend to reapply

for my job," she said.

Rutherford had to travel to

Massachusetts for a funeral over the weekend and missed Sunday's

council meeting, at which the reality of her situation came into focus.

McMullen thinks that two quick

council sessions after the first of the year, one on Jan. 5 and another

on Jan. 16, can handle the remaining business items that must be addressed

on a council vote. If that's successful, the PCTA will assume the

employees with the start of the next pay period, Jan. 18.

That would leave Rutherford

out of work for about two weeks, but she says she can "survive."

Still unclear were the legal

issues involved with a "temporary" resignation, should Rutherford

be rehired by the PCTA after being sworn onto the council.

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