Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Poolman: Councilman must stand up for PTC citizens

First of all I wish to thank the thousands of people that came to the polls to cast a vote Nov. 4. I look forward to receiving your vote again at the Nov. 25 runoff election.

Unfortunately, I had to miss the Rotary Club Forum due to a previous obligation to review and evaluate a new financial system for my employer that took me to Washington, D.C., for a couple of days. This trip was planned a month before I decided to run for City Council. It is important to me to honor my commitments both on my job and for the voters of PTC. I am a critical player in this selection process and could not reschedule this evaluation.

There are some important issues that must be considered prior to entering the voting booth for the runoff election. Our current city officials inherited some financial problems and with the poor economy this has made the situation even worse. The current administration has done an adequate job dealing with financial issues but need to do better.

First, we need to look at city employees paying more of their health insurance costs as the private sector is currently doing.

Second, we need to look at re-bidding all professional contracts like what was done with the city attorney and the city auditor. Many of these have not been re-bid in years and substantial savings may be realized.

Third, we need to continue to make the tennis center and amphitheater more cost effective and self-sufficient so that we can use more of the hotel/motel taxes for real economic development or badly needed cart path repairs.

My opponent will not be able to vote on such issues since she is an employee of the amphitheater. In fact voting for anything about the budget may be a conflict with my opponent. The citizens hopefully will not elect someone that will not be able to vote on every issue.

My opponent, a former Development Authority employee, seems absorbed with the subject of creating unity. I also believe that unity is important, but not at any price.

I am not in favor of the Fayette County Master Recreation Plan that takes tax dollars from Peachtree City citizens allotted for recreation and uses them elsewhere in the county. Giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the county when our PTC recreational facilities have huge maintenance costs is simply not fair. We need to demand that our tax dollars be spent in our city.

The Fayette County Master Transportation Plan is very similar to the above issue with the difference being that the funding may come from a 1-percent SPLOST to be paid by everyone in the county.

We generate almost half of the sales in the county so our money will fund the county-wide road projects and yet not one of the city’s projects even make the priority list of the county.

Why would we pay extra taxes to pay for everyone else’s road improvements? Again, it is only equitable that we ask that some of our dollars be spent in our city. My opponent does not agree with me on this matter.

In conclusion the starting of widening of Ga. Highway 54 West and the escalation of widening Ga. Highway 74 South of Hwy. 54 are good starts to improving the traffic in PTC. These projects need local matching funds to complete the improvements.

For 23 years, my job has been to cut costs, modify government budgets and set the financial priorities for cities and counties. Searching through spreadsheet after spreadsheet and line by line budgets extracting savings from each department is something I do every day.

My experience allows me to know what a reasonable expense is and what is not. I know how to ensure that all funds are used efficiently, identify ways to reduce cost with better management and competitive bidding.

If you have any questions on the above positions or have other concerns you would like me to comment on prior to the runoff election feel free to give me a call at 770-632-0846. Being an elected official in Peachtree City would be a great honor and I would appreciate your vote on Nov. 25.

Lee Poolman

PTC Post 1 Candidate