The Peachtree City Council wants to lop a year off the length of terms for seats on the city's Airport Authority and Water and Sewer Authority.

To become official, the change will need to be approved by Fayette County's state legislators, which City Councilman Steve Rapson predicts won't happen.

Thursday night council discussed cutting the terms from five years to three, but the number was cut to four on a compromise, which was approved unanimously.

Airport Authority and WASA representatives urged council to hold the terms at five years, saying it takes a long time to train volunteers who are chosen to the positions. Council members have the final say in appointing all authority members, and the current legislation allows for an authority member to be removed for "misconduct."

There are no term limits on how many consecutive times a particular person can serve on a given authority.

Mayor Steve Brown, however, argued that it is almost impossible for the city to remove an authority member for misconduct unless they broke the law or if their attendance record fell below 80 percent. He pointed to the former Development Authority, which Brown said borrowed money even after the City Council instructed them not to. The action took place back when the authority was charged with running the city's amphitheater and tennis center.

"One of the things we're looking at is you have no accountability what-so-ever," Brown said, breaking up the syllables of the final word to make an emphatic point. He also noted that it is the rare exception for council not to re-appoint an existing authority member who reapplies for his or her position.

Councilman Murray Weed said he would like to see a council member be able to fill all positions on both authorities during that council member's four-year term.

Councilwoman Judi-ann Rutherford said she had a different reason for wanting to adopt three-year terms for authority members. It would allow more persons to consider joining an authority because many people can't make a five-year commitment of their time due to personal and job responsibilities, Rutherford said.

"I truly believe we're leaving lots of good people behind because they can't [commit] to more than three years," Rutherford said, noting that it has become harder to find citizens to volunteer for the authority positions.

Councilman Steve Rapson said he felt reducing the terms to three years would have the opposite effect "if we basically say, 'We don't trust you,' which is what I think this says."

Rapson also argued that reducing the terms to three years makes the authorities more vulnerable to the political process, when they were created in large part to be separated from politics.

"Both authorities are healthy, both are financially sound and they have an excellent reputation, and they have good open communications," Rapson said.

Councilman Stuart Kourajian said just because the system in place isn't broken doesn't mean a change would hurt.

Airport Authority Chairman Jerry Cobb said the authority's main projects are on time frames of four years or more, and much institutional knowledge could be lost if the City Council decided to select new authority members each cycle. He pointed out that very few authority members have served the entire length of their five-year term, which also gets newcomers involved.

Cobb also said the authority is accountable, largely because it is audited every year.

WASA is just about the opposite, as the agency hasn't had any members leave with some of their term remaining, Chairman John Gronner told council. Although some decline to reapply after just one term, at least the city gets five years' worth of work out of them, Gronner added.

Gronner also said WASA was proud of the job it has done improving the sewer system, which he noted was acquired in fairly bad shape in 1997, and it has weathered losing its largest customer without causing an impact on city residents' sewer bills.