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3 unnamed newcomers consider mayoral run

Two council seats also up for grabs

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCItizenNews.com

2005 will shape up to be quite an interesting year for Peachtree City politics-wise as voters will have their say on the mayor’s post and two council seats, enough to affect the voting majority of the five-member City Council.

Mayor Steve Brown said this month that he’s holding off on announcing whether he will or won’t run for re-election until possibly February, he said.

“I’m not undecided, but I just don’t want to do anything at the beginning of the year,” Brown said, adding that he wanted to get the annual State of the City address behind him before proceeding with election matters. “I just kind of want to hold on to things until the year gets going.”

Potential opponents to Brown aren’t waiting around, though, according to a representative of a political action committee that has often clashed with Brown.

Three political newcomers have expressed their interest in running for mayor, according to Rex Green, chairman of the DIRECT PAC political action committee. One of the newcomers has already met with the group, seeking its support, Green said.

Green declined to reveal the possible candidates’ names since they haven’t publicly announced their candidacy yet.

“Clearly it’s going to be a horse race,” Green said. “And I imagine more will come forward.”

Councilman Steve Rapson said some residents have asked him to run for mayor, but he is unsure whether he would be willing to. He said he enjoyed serving on the city council tremendously and is proud of its accomplishments in the past year, but he would have to talk a mayoral run over with his family before making a decision.

“I really haven’t thought about what I’m going to do in November,” Rapson said of the election.

The council seats held by Rapson and Murray Weed will be up for grabs in the election along with the mayor’s position.

Green made it clear DIRECT PAC wants a good candidate to run against Brown.

“We need to stop the political assassinations and insinuations and the constant conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory,” Green said. The group also wants a candidate who can improve the working relationships with the county, surrounding communities and the state, Green added.

DIRECT PAC supported current council members Judi-ann Rutherford and Stuart Kourajian in the last city council race, and thus wields at least some perceived influence over the political climate. But Green said there was no way to know whether the group had any affect on the election or not.

“We’d like to think we had some positive influence,” Green said.

The committee wanted council members who would bring some independent thinking to the table, evaluating issues on their own without factoring in allegiances. The idea was to “strengthen” the maturity and thoughtfulness of the council collectively, Green added.

“We are not puppeteers pulling strings and making people dance,” Green said of the committee. “That’s not what we’re about at all.”

Green encouraged any other interested candidates to call him at home.

“I’m in the book,” he said.

Brown said he was at a recent meeting with other metro Atlanta mayors when the topic turned to the political climate in Peachtree City. They got a big laugh about how Brown was the only mayor who had a “political action committee that was created to remove me from office,” he said, referring to DIRECT PAC.

A possible election issue could be the lack of action on the road project to extend TDK Boulevard into Coweta County. The project has been delayed for some time, most recently because the Federal Aviation Administration opposed the path of the road, which went directly through the runway safety area for Falcon Field airport. To avoid the runway safety area, the road must be redesigned, and the City Council hasn’t committed the estimated $38,000 needed to finish the redesign process.

Brown said he knew going into office that he would be blamed for some things regardless of the situation, and he cited the TDK lack of progress as one particular example. Attending city council meetings and planning commission meetings before he ran for office, Brown said, was a tremendous help.