Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Poolman: Teamwork, quality of life top list

We are less than one week away from the runoff election for Peachtree City Post 1.

I realize that most Peachtree City residents are unfamiliar with my background.

I have devoted my entire career to public administration and finance. My degree is in public administration and finance from a northwest Ohio College.

I came to Georgia with my family in 1990 as finance director for the city of Griffin. This was a huge challenge; Griffin was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Within two years the then-city manager, Richard Crowdis, and myself turned Griffin around. By 1993 Griffin had a positive fund balance and financial stability. This took some hard decisions on spending controls and the ability to know real costs versus fluff in a department’s budget.

Sometimes the answer to additional spending has to be “NO.”

Dealing with city and county issues is second nature to me. Working with elected officials and balancing budgets are not a part-time job for me. I handle these types of activities on a daily basis in my current place of employment and have been doing so for over 23 years.

It is a natural progression for me to move into a city council seat. It would be an honor to have the opportunity to solve issues in my home community. So let me expand on my position on some current Peachtree City issues:

We need to guarantee the preservation of the integrity of individual communities and small-town feel by minimizing any unnecessary traffic that would jeopardize the safety of the residents and their children.

I am personally in favor of keeping a great deal of green space undeveloped in our city. This green area gives PTC the appearance that most of us moved here for. It’s this coupled with the cart paths that make PTC so different from any other city in Georgia. We are the envy of most of the surrounding cities for this very reason.

We also have to change the negative image portrayed over the last few years. This can be accomplished by better teamwork. It takes two to argue and I will not participate in such childlike activities. I will develop my own opinion only after hearing all the facts on an issue. I will not disagree just to disagree.

The most important thing I intend to do is protect the current quality of life we have in PTC today. Whether it’s solving a traffic problem or dealing with new development, the underlying city-wide quality of life needs to be preserved for our residents. I can not say it often enough that I value this above everything.

Lee H. Poolman

Candidate for PTC Council Post 1