Today’s lesson: ”Living within your means.” I really don’t like being too negative but when elected officials overspend, usually in a sad attempt to get reelected, make friends or pay off a favor, I get incensed.

Perhaps it is just plain incompetence, but how many of you realize our elected city officials overspent revenues the last two years by $2 million?

Reserves were used for fiscal years 2008 ($850,000) and 2009 ($1.15 million). I’m not sure how simply I can say this, but it means they spent $2 million more than the city made.

Now they’re trying to figure out how to cut $3.5 million. Is anyone really surprised?

How many of you realize the approved budget for our current year includes the following statement, “... projections for future years, therefore, include maintenance and operation millage rate increases of 1.5 mills, .523 mills and .3 mills for fiscal years 2010 through 2012, respectively.”

Of course there is a disclaimer saying they hope they won’t have to do that. Raise your hand if you think this wasn’t going to come to light, other than being buried in the 1,000-page budget document, until after the election this year, after they got themselves reelected?

Our city’s mission statement bullet #2 reads, “Provide consistency in the delivery of municipal services in a fiscally responsible way.” They failed.

Also, the current budget document has this little gem in it, “... there will be a greater reliance upon future reassessments of existing property. ...” How frightening is that?

You bet I’m incensed. Unfortunately, our current elected officials created this mess and we have to depend on them to get us out of it.

By November, we’ll have a budget, but rest assured there will be a lot of cuts between now and then.

If only they had the self-discipline to not overspend early, we could have minimized the impact of the economic downturn and weathered the coming several years’ storm more responsibly.

One final thought for this article. It is my intention to run for public office without any hidden agenda, no ego trip, and most important of all to return our wonderful city back to the vision our founders had.

As such, I have printed business cards that read, “Please be advised any discussion related to the business of Peachtree City will be considered public information. Proceed with this fact in mind.”

If anyone ever talks to me about trying to get me to vote a certain way on anything, I will not only give them this business card but make that conversation part of my public record.

I will not be bought, sold, manipulated, pushed, filed, stamped, indexed or numbered. Please forgive the paraphrase attempt some of you may recognize.

Eric Imker

Candidate for Peachtree City Council Post 1

ReturnToTheVision@gmail.com