Peachtree City's

growing popularity as a site for large-scale special events is stretching

the city's emergency services personnel nearly to the breaking point,

members of the Recreation Commission were told last week.

"It's

not a crisis yet, but we need to head it off before it becomes a crisis,"

Leisure Services Director Randy Gaddo told commissioners during their

regular July meeting.

Fire Chief

Stony Lohr and Police Lt. Stan Pye backed up Gaddo's position, relating

story upon story of city police officers, fire and rescue personnel giving

up their days off and personal time, sometimes several weeks in a row,

to make sure safety requirements were met at public functions.

A triathlon

planned for September was apparently the event that prompted emergency

services personnel to cry for help.

"Personnel

are being stretched so thin, it was getting tough to cover the special

events and other duties," Gaddo explained.

Many of the

events that require extra police or emergency services protection are

staged by out-of-town concerns, and almost always held on weekends.

That means

the same pool of off-duty officers or medics is called upon, repeatedly,

to volunteer their time to work such events.

"It's

done out of a personal feeling that we need to do something," said

Fire Chief Sonny Lohr, who confessed to working events himself in lieu

of asking his staff to do it, just so all the bases would get covered.

"When

we started this however many years ago, it was no big deal," said

Lohr. "But now it's weekend after weekend after weekend. And something

needs to be done."

To that end,

the recreation commission endorsed a new Special Events Policy, a first

for the city, that seeks to define and categorize events, establishes

rules on what event organizers can and cannot do in the city, and sets

up a fee structure for applications, deposits and the hiring of extra

city personnel.

After some

minor clarification of the language, the document will be presented to

the City Council for formal approval at an upcoming meeting, Gaddo said.

The ordinance

would affect any activity drawing 100 or more participants or spectators,

which would have to be approved by a special events review committee before

permits would be granted.

The committee

would be drawn from across city agencies, and would categorize proposed

events as having small, medium, large or major impact on the city, its

services and residents.

For example,

the Great Georgia Air Show on Sept. 6-7 is a "major impact"

event, Gaddo said, drawing 20,000 visitors to the city.

Event organizers

would have to formally apply through the recreation department to hold

events, paying an application fee and, if approved, various deposits and

expenses for safety personnel, cleanup, and the like. Organizations would

also have to show proof of liability insurance for major events, Gaddo

said.

The fee structure

has yet to be firmed up, but likely would include $50 for the application

and deposits starting at $100 and up, depending on the size of the event.

If approved

the events policy starting Jan. 1, 2004. Events already scheduled or budgeted

Jan. 1, 2005.

"This

is a draft policy, not set in concrete," Gaddo said. "There

are a lot of issues that still need to be worked out."

Longtime city

events, such as the Peachtree City Running Club's annual 5K in the fall,

would receive special consideration.

A representative

of the running club was concerned the group couldn't afford the new fee

structure.

"This

is not an attempt to limit or exclude," Gaddo explained. "We

left in the policy the ability to waive some of these things, to use our

judgment because no two events are the same."

Pye said the

policy won't change the way the police department handles events so much

as give the department a better heads-up on planning for them.

"I don't

think you'll see much difference, just better planning on our end, so

we can handle the 8,000-people events with no problems," Pye said.

Gaddo said

the proposal should be ready to present to the City Council at the Aug.

21 meeting.