“Fill dirt for Dover City Hall May Not have been Compacted Properly,” former Dover Building Inspector says

Tons of fill dirt trucked in and placed in the large hole/ravine where Dover City Hall was built may not have been compacted properly, according to Max Touchton, former Dover building inspector.

Touchton was Dover’s Codes Enforcement officer/building inspector when the Dover City Hall was built in the mid-1990s. Touchton said neither he nor any other city employees under his direction or supervision had any input or oversight over the ambitious city hall construction project.

“We were not involved at all,” Touchton said. “We were left out of it completely. The fill dirt may or may not have been compacted properly or at all. I couldn’t say,” he said. Touchton’s job was to inspect any and all construction projects in the Town of Dover at the time, just not for his employer.

Recently ,Touchton was at city hall and the cracks in the outer walls and the area where it appears the building is pulling away from the foundation were pointed out to the former Dover Building Inspector. “It’s not supposed to be doing that,” he said.

Touchton was asked if that omission of the town’s own building inspector not being involved in a major building project of a city building within the city of Dover had raised questions for him. either then or now. “I always have questions.”

At the May 2021 Dover City Council meeting, interim Dover City administrator Charles Parks, Sr., told the council under new business the mid-90s era city hall had developed cracks in the walls and the building seems to be pulling away from the foundation. He asked for up to $4,000 for a structural engineer to come in and assess the extent of the problems with the city hall and report back.

There are visible cracks in the walls of city hall, some bricks have fallen off the building and some doors and windows do not open properly. There also may be some large cracks in parts of the basement of city hall. Parks said it could be several weeks before he gets a report from the engineer on the extent of the damage.

Touchton said the city project was supervised entirely by employees and officials with Highers – Koonce and Associates, Inc. , Engineers., Nashville. The engineering firm’s name is on the plaque on the wall at the front entrance of the building.

At the time of construction, Many Dover residents and taxpayers and some former city officials verbally expressed concern that the new city hall was being built on what was a very deep hole — possibly a sink hole — that had been filled in with tons of fill dirt. When asked if he knew who had literally built the building under the supervision of Highers and Koonce, the former building inspector said, “It was a bunch of Mexicans.”

If you look at the parcel where the old “Helping Hands Building” was located, the ravine or hole where Dover City Hall is built, one lot over, was at least as deep if not deeper than the Helping Hands lot.

One former Dover resident whose family had owned the property where the city hall is built said it once was a lot for animals and there was a pond about where city hall is now and that it may have been built on a sink hole.

It has long been a prediction among some Dover residents that one day they may wake to find their city hall has fallen down into the hole on which it was built. City officials are hoping that day has not arrived. “We will know more when we get our report from the engineer,” Parks said. Completion date of the building was on June 22, 1998 and ground breaking was on December 11, 1996. J. Ray Sexton was Mayor of Dover at the time and Jimmy Scurlock was the Dover City Administrator. ©Copyright LBLUS.com, 2021 — All Rights Reserved — Written by David R. Ross