AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) — No crowd at Diamond Lakes due to the weather, but a recent visit by two commissioners is setting off a storm about the facilities.
“Commissioner Mason and I took a tour out there back in December, it was pretty appalling at what we saw,” said Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Garrett.
What commissioners saw was the condition of the scoring towers, which house the park’s bathrooms. Last year, the bathrooms were closed due to drainage problems prompting the commission to approve half a million dollars for repairs to get them reopened.
“Yeah, they’re closed again, there are some mold issues. We’re still talking about some mold remediation that needs to be done, previous contractors did not complete the job as they were supposed to,” said Commissioner Alvin Mason.
Since May, Augusta has spent $360,000 on the towers but is getting little bang for its buck.
“Where we are now, we have stopped work because of an issue we are having that just changing the drains is not going to stop the problem we’re having,” said Interim Central Service Director Ron Lampkin.
“We’ve invested a lot of taxpayer dollars to have what I consider world-class facilities, right now they’re not world-class, and we need to do a better job,” said Mayor Garnett Johnson.
A top-to-bottom assessment is being planned for the towers to identify all the problems and how to fix them, but this could require even more money from the city.
“Until then we won’t have a full assessment of how much the costs are going to be until we know exactly what the problem is,” said Lampkin.
The towers have been an issue for over a decade, costing almost one million dollars, and those costs could climb.