Friday, September 26, 2003
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Friday, September 26, 2003 |
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Embattled director: 'Steve Brown wants to destroy me' By J. FRANK
LYNCH
"Steve Brown wants to destroy me," said Virgil Christian Thursday, just hours before a special called meeting of the Development Authority of Peachtree City at which Christian was expected to lay down an ultimatum. "Where do we go from here, guys?" Christian asked rhetorically in a rapid-fire half-hour phone call dominated by his venting. "We built the best tennis center in the country, and it's not good enough." "Well, it's time for people to say what they mean, and mean what they say," he declared. The main target of his ire: Mayor Steve Brown. "He wants my head and he'll do anything to do it," suggested Christian. "I don't even know the man, except he has a nice family, a wife and two girls." "But you know what? It's not going to be that easy anymore. He has already destroyed other people in this town, but it's never enough. He wants more and more and more." Christian would not elaborate long-range except to say, "I'm going to do what's best for the community and for the people who work (at the Tennis Center). We've got 35 people who work here, and there is no reason to go on destroying people's lives just because of the actions of one person. It's not fair, and it's not right." Comparing his role to that of a soldier leading troops into battle, Christian offered that he would abide by whatever decisions the city council and development authority made about his employment. "I'm a good soldier," he said. "I'm accountable to the authorities and accountable to the council. I'm not an out-of-control independent guy just running around on the streets signing contracts and building buildings and bringing Clayton State in and ruining the community, I'm just not." But he was willing to offer a challenge, nonetheless. "You find something I've done illegal, and then I will hand you my resignation," he said. Christian has been the focus of criticism from Brown and others on City Council since last year's major expansion of the Tennis Center, a project that Christian managed, and which, by some estimates, had $2 million in cost overruns that remain not fully explained. "You find something I've done illegal, and then I will hand you my resignation," he said. "But what I've done is give something wonderful to the community with very little money asked." While critics see the "lack of disclosure" on the part of the DAPC as evidence of guilt, Christian views it differently. "What's happened in all this is it's gotten so personal, or rather the city has allowed it to get it so personal, that nobody knows the truth anymore," he said. "It's like a big soap opera. It's a joke." Christian was a well-known tennis pro at a club in suburban Philadelphia before he was wooed to Georgia to build the Peachtree City tennis center nearly from the ground up. Today, eight years later, the Peachtree City Tennis Center is firmly established as the best facility of its kind in Georgia, and has won numerous national awards. It hosts several tournaments annually, including an Adidas college event this weekend that features teams from Notre Dame, Northwestern and Arizona. "I'm looking out the window here at 12 university teams that keep coming back here year after year because they love this place," he said. "They know where Starbuck's is and they eat at Atlanta Bread Company and they shop at Gap at The Avenue. Peachtree City is what they do in the fall now and in the spring now. It's a destination for them, the top college players in the country. It's a wonderful thing."
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