From my family to yours, best wishes of the Thanksgiving season.

I wish happy holidays to our City Council members, decent people who take a lot of flack from those who disagree with them. I will surely take my own flack should I be honored to serve as your Post 2 councilman.

For example, my friend Mayor Logsdon is a good man, but I believe that he is dead wrong on the stances he has taken on TDK, sale of city property to a private developer, big box possibilities and the police building clean-up.

I realize that he believes he is doing the right thing, but I don’t believe that he is listening to the people. I hope that on some future occasion that he’ll be willing to play golf with me when I vote against him.

NO! on big box development, we should enforce our own ordinance, for Pete’s sake.

NO! on Lowe’s at [Ga. Highway] 74 and TDK. The Fayette County court recently ruled against the city’s opposition to Lowe’s on the basis of a retail store in an industrial area, and we should explore the possibilities of appeal. Even though Lowe’s doesn’t seem interested now that TDK is on hold, the ruling keeps alive the threat of future developer proposals.

NO! on selling property to a developer to make his development work. Remind the developer that he knew that the property was divided by a city street when he bought it. Our answer should continue to be NO! unless and until such time such a sale is clearly shown to be in the city’s best interest, not the developer’s.

NO! on the Kohl’s big box. Both Shirley and I like to shop at Kohl’s, but we prefer to drive a few minutes away from Peachtree City to shop there.

NO! on TDK [Extension]. Reasonable and honest people can disagree, but I do not understand how any representative of Peachtree City can do anything but adamantly oppose this road extension now that we know that this planned extension facilitates a massive development in Coweta County at the cost of traffic woes for us in Peachtree City.

Not just NO! but over my cold, dead body. This I believe will squash what uniqueness we have remaining in Peachtree City.

NO! to the police station clean-up proposal. I have heard the accusations, but I do not know the facts of how the city paid for a defective police station in the first place.

I do know that I am opposed to the mayor’s and council’s plan to spend $593,000 on repairs that may or may not fix the problem with no guarantee of results.

Instead of gambling with taxpayer money, we should proceed with a high priority exploration of the cost of a different location and building for our police force, weighed against the cost of distracting them from their duties with temporary and tenuous fixes. Let’s do it right so we don’t have to do it again.

I would also like to see us explore whether legal action is warranted against the parties involved in the initial purchase of defective property for the police station.

NO! on the proposed consolidation of trash services. Let the four vendors compete. Consolidation, while possibly reducing costs in the short-term, may very well end up costing the residents of Peachtree City much more in the long-term.

My opponent, Mr. Sturbaum, has stated that we need to put into law the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for Peachtree City. I am not totally sure where I stand on this as yet. I agree it is an interesting idea to limit by law what the City Council can and cannot approve in deviance from the plan, because our current councils have seemed determined over the last several years to be taking us in the wrong direction with overdevelopment.

I do worry that such a “law” might cede to the Planning Commission the approval authority on certain developments without going to City Council, which would be troubling since the commission is not elected.

Doug’s idea is worth exploration, I think, with cautious focus on the details.

That’s my stand on some of our current issues. If I sound negative, I guess that’s because I believe it’s long past the time to reverse course on development In Peachtree City. Sometimes the best progress is saying NO!

Remember my analogy of boiling frogs, that one at a time these developments erode the quality of life that we enjoy. Let us act now to reverse this trend before we are the boiling frogs who have waited too long to realize what is happening to our city before it’s too late.

I will respectfully disagree with the mayor and other council members with both my words and votes because, no matter where we stand on issues, we all deserve the presumption of being decent and honest men and women.

I have lived in Peachtree City for more than 20 years, raised three kids here and know well the unique flavor of our golf cart and village lifestyle. My passion is keeping Peachtree City special, and right now the best way to do that is being prepared to say and vote NO. I ask for your vote on Dec. 4.

Mike King — MR NO!

Candidate for City Council Post 2

Peachtree City, Ga.

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