The Peachtree City Police Station problem is an issue of much concern, emotion, debate and frustration. Adding the economic realities of the Peachtree City budget shortfalls and pressures on the citizens makes the issues even worse.

But Council still has to come to some decision on how to proceed. Doing nothing is not an option. The decision must be a long-term fix, not one that simply buys time to postpone larger and additional costs to a future date. It must begin with the question of can the police station be fixed permanently or not?

With that in mind a historical review is in order.

• When the initial proposal was made to buy the current site, many citizens spoke strongly against the choice. They knew the site was an old dump site. City Hall claimed that where the building was to be built was not such a site, but an island bordered by the actual dump location. But reality is debris is under the building, whether you want to call it landfill or dump and hazardous or non-hazardous. Debris of many types was found under or by the building and reported by a number of people.

• April 2001: The Certificate of Occupancy was issued.

• Soon after, moisture appeared in the building.

• After that, the floor began blistering and de-laminating.

• June 2004: An engineering firm determined the floor blistering and de-laminating was due to “excessive” moisture in the ground. That is ground water. It is to be noted in June of 2004 we were in drought with a 9.43-inch deficit in the Atlanta area, but the ground around the police station was noted as being wet.

• Early 2005: Work was completed on removing the floor coverings, sealing the floor and recovering the floor.

• August 2005: Another engineering firm performed moisture transmission testing due to continued floor blistering. They found moisture levels were high and significantly greater than specified limits. Moisture was still reaching the floor from the ground below.

• October 2005: The city manager sent a memo to the Police Department to calm concerns that, while the structure was built on an old dump site, the materials in the dump were not hazardous.

• March 2006: A third engineering firm determined the building problems included deeper sub-surface moisture and wall construction problems.

• December 2007: I inspected the building and site. It was easy to see site grading and construction defects. It was also very observable that, after months of drought, land surrounding and near the Police Station was very wet when it should have been extremely dry, as was the reality elsewhere. Such wet conditions were also observable on an adjoining property in spot locations.

• October 2007-2008: A fourth engineering firm was hired to investigate “moisture intrusion through the wall and roof systems.” Contrary to some claims, they were not hired to examine the floor and only officially reported findings regarding the roof and wall structures. Every council member has a bound engineering report.

• January 2008: Liquid water was found in a 6-foot monitoring well within the building after some rain.

• Repairs authorized in late 2007, in a 3-2 council vote, included scraping the floor, sealing it and re-flooring. Of this vote, 2-1 remain on the council. This will be the second scraping and sealing and the third floor covering in a 7-year period.

• Additional repairs under consideration include the exterior wall removal and replacement. At a council meeting pro-repair advocates on council cited the current engineering firm’s findings as showing no ground water issues to refute my statements about ground water. I directly asked the firm about the wet grounds I saw during a drought, and the engineer shrugged; he could not explain it.

I fully agree the wall construction is bad and can be fixed. But I totally disagree, as do the three engineering firms not contracted to only look at the walls and roof, that there are no ground water issues causing blistering and de-laminating of the flooring and other moisture-related problems.

This is not a comfortable decision to make, and any decision has ramifications. But make a decision we must, and I personally cannot find justification to proceed with repairs to the building as a Police Headquarters that may appear cheaper in the short-term but will prove far more expensive in the long term.

Don Haddix, Council Post 1

Peachtree City, Ga.

donhaddix.com