Two seats up for election in November

Michael L. King, a political novice and a 20-year resident of Peachtree City, has announced he will run for a seat on the City Council in the November general election.

King said Wednesday morning that he has attended city council meetings and wants the city to keep its small-town atmosphere. One particular concern is the ever-increasing morning commute to downtown Atlanta, as the interchange of Ga. Highway 74 and Interstate 85 is a choke point, King said.

King said that areas in north Fulton County such as Alpharetta grew too fast, and the result is a traffic nightmare.

It would be far better for improvements to occur at Hwy. 74 and I-85 before adding on other roads such as the scuttled TDK Boulevard extension that would have added more traffic, King said. It makes more sense to work on another way for future residents of the approved McIntosh Village in Coweta to have another way to get to I-85, King added.

Those goals can be reached by cooperation between the city and various other agencies working together including the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, King said.

The most important goal of the city should be to maintain the current quality of life.

“We just need to enhance it a little bit,” King said.

King, 58, retired from the U.S. Army in 1993 as a lieutenant colonel and he currently works at Wade Ford in Smyrna selling trucks to commercial customers. He is married and his three children are all grown.

King said he is not seeking to be appointed to the unexpired term of Judi-ann Rutherford, which will be filled later this month by the City Council, which will select a qualified citizen who volunteers to serve through the end of the year.

King said going for the open seat would create an unfair advantage over other candidates who want to run in November.

King said one of the main reasons he wants to run is for the challenge.

“It’s going to be fun I think,” King said, adding that he’s certainly not doing it for the money.

One of King’s first challenges is filling out the amount of paperwork the city requires from city council candidates, he joked.

“They want to know more about me than the Army did,” King said.