Church offering to host seniors at planned community center

Peachtree City First Baptist Church is planning to build a community center, and who would’ve thought such a thing would be controversial?

The center has caused a mild consternation among quite a few senior adults in the city because the church has offered to host senior programs there that are currently hosted at the Gathering Place, a city recreation building. Betsy Dodds, president? of the Senior Adult Council, said the general consensus from seniors is that they’d rather stay where they are.

Dodds presided over a meeting of the SAC Thursday morning that put Mayor Harold Logsdon on the hot seat.

“No, we’re not going to scrap the addition,” Logsdon told the council. But the City Council needs to examine the offer from the church to see what programs could logistically be held there, and perhaps, the city could scale back the Gathering Place expansion from its current projected size of 6,000 sq. ft. and save some money, he added.

“We don’t want to build an oversized facility,” Logsdon said, adding that the city’s tennis center is oversized.

Waiting to see the church’s proposal means a delay in getting an architect for the Gathering Place expansion, but it’s the right thing to do fiscally, Logsdon said.

“Will we do the design in ‘06? I can’t promise you we will,” he said.

Councilwoman Cyndi Plunkett noted that seniors have also told her and the rest of council “not to raise taxes.” Randy Gaddo, director of the city’s leisure services division, added that the City Council needs to be committed to increase staffing levels when the Gathering Place is expanded.

Councilman Steve Boone also said he was in favor of expanding the senior center, but he thinks the city needs to look into the church proposal.

The church hasn’t firmed up its drawings yet for its community center, but it could be as large as 27,000 sq. ft., said church member Randy Daughtry.

Church and city officials helped clear up a few misconceptions from several council members:

‰ The church will not charge the senior groups for utilities and the like;

‰ The church plans to work with a city recreation employee to develop a schedule for events, and once the city’s programs are on the calendar they won’t be bumped for a church event;

‰ There will be storage available so seniors won’t have to tote all the necessary items for programs in and out of the church community center;

‰ The projected completion date for the community center as of now is January 2008.

‰ The church also has plans to offer programs for youths in the community.

Logsdon said the recreation department would work with the senior council to determine what programs could be moved over to the church’s facility.

The completion date was of concern to several senior council members, but Logsdon said the church’s plans should be firmed up in the next several months and then the city could proceed with designing the Gathering Place expansion.

The church’s informal plan will come before the City Council at its March 16 meeting because a land swap is needed for the church to make the project a reality, officials said.

By the end of the meeting, Logsdon won some favor with the senior council after they “strong-armed” him into helping raise funds for the group’s Christmas luncheon, which was a big success last year thanks to then-mayor Steve Brown.

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