City of Cartersville v. Municipal Electric Authority
City of Cartersville v. Municipal Electric Authority
Opinion of the Court
The parties appeal an order from the Superior Court of Bartow County regarding the constitutionality of two different proposed changes to the Power Sales Contract between the City of Cartersville and the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG). At issue is whether the proposed contractual arrangements would comply with the intergovernmental contracts clause of the Georgia Constitution, which allows political subdivisions of the State to contract with one another or with other public agencies, so long as the term of the contract does not exceed 50 years.
MEAG supplies electrical power to Cartersville on a non-profit basis through the Power Sales Contract.
The 50-year limitation of the intergovernmental contracts clause has only been addressed by this Court on one occasion. In Nations v. Downtown Development Authority,
The trial court in this case erred when it found MEAG’s proposed 25-year extension to be the equivalent of a 75-year contract under the Nations rationale. In contrast to the contract at issue in Nations, which gave the Authority the unilateral power to extend the contract without the City’s consent, the proposed 25-year extension to the Power Sales Contracts would require the mutual agreement of both parties. So long as Cartersville’s consent to the extension would not result in Cartersville being contractually bound for more than 50 years from the moment of that consent, the contractual extension would not violate the intergovernmental contracts clause. In this case, since there is less than 25 years remaining on the term of the original Power Sales Contract,
MEAG’s alternative offer, to rescind the current Power Sales Contract and enter into a new 50-year contract, also passes constitutional muster. In that situation, both parties are again required to mutually agree to the novation and Cartersville would never be bound for more than 50 years, in compliance with the intergovernmental contracts clause.
Because neither of the two proposed changes to the existing Power Sales Contract would result in Cartersville being contractually bound for more than 50 years, both proposals are acceptable under the intergovernmental contracts clause. Accordingly, that part
Judgment affirmed in Case No. S03A1274 and reversed in Case No. S03X1275.
Ga. Const. Art. IX, Sec. Ill, Par. I (a).
Thompson v. Municipal Electric Auth., 238 Ga. 19 (231 SE2d 720) (1976) (upholding legality and validity of Power Sales Contracts).
255 Ga. 324 (338 SE2d 240) (1985).
Id. at 332 (5).
The Power Sales Contract was entered in February 1978.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.