"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."