For a growing group of Peachtree City residents, a lot has happened since the April 15 tea party held at City Hall.

Event organizer Cindy Fallon and others last month formed the non-profit Peachtree City Tea Party Patriots that last week had a mailing list that included nearly 1,300 names. The group will hold their next event July 4 at the Fredrick Brown Amphitheater.

The group organized out of what they saw as an obvious interest, and a need. Speaking last week, organization officers Cindy Fallon and Jim Richter said the local Tea Party Patriots is a grass-roots, non-partisan group of concerned citizens dissatisfied with the direction the country is headed.

Richter and Fallon said the group’s organization comes on the heels of the local April 15 tea party at City Hall that was attended by people, not only from Peachtree City, Fayette and Coweta counties, but from Jonesboro, Columbus, Stockbridge, Griffin, Albany and Ft. Gaines.

Richter and Fallon, along with organization officers Teresa Clark and Denise Ognio, said they expect their efforts to extend much further than the geographical boundaries of Peachtree City and Fayette County.

The group said its core values support fiscal responsibility, limited local, state and federal government, regulatory restraint, a simple and equitable tax policy and free markets.

Within that framework, their stated mission is to organize like-minded individuals, educate and inform others based on the core values, secure public policy consistent with those values, promote tax reform and positively affect the outcome of elections at the local, state and federal levels.

“I believe you should leave this place a better place than it was when you got here. It’s so bad for our children and grandchildren by not paying our own way as we go; and being saddled-in with debt that is unimaginable. We need to get control of our fiscal house and not leave this towering debt for our children to take care of. Basically, we’re asking them to take care of us because we were unable to take care of ourselves. And that is preposterous,” Richter said.

“We gathered a list of almost 1,300 names in less than three weeks. We hope to be able to expand that group to 10,000. And I don’t think that’s an unrealistic goal. We intend to continue to go further outside our community. This thing can grow exponentially without limit. We need to take back our country. That’s the bottom line,” Richter said.

Fallon said that while local, the Peachtree City organization is establishing links to a growing state and national network. She said the group’s emerging website will contain a variety of information useful for like-minded people.

“We want to link each and every community that’s outside of us that will link to the (tea party organizations) across Georgia and the United States,” Fallon said. “This is not just about education and motivating. We are also about working with politicians, having them understand this is a contract with them (that determines) whether we are going to vote for them or not.”

PTC Tea Party Patriots representatives said they have plans for the upcoming July 4 holiday. Along with having an entry in the Peachtree City July 4 Parade, the group has reserved Fredrick Brown Amphitheater that afternoon from 4:00-5:30 p.m.

Speakers at the public event will include Korea and Vietnam veteran and Fayetteville resident Col. Ben Malcom (U.S. Army-Ret.), Congressman Lynn Westmoreland and local business owner Marty Harbin.

The event will also feature live music and Peachtree City resident Theo Scott playing the part of Thomas Paine.

For more information on the local organization and the July 4 event contact Jim Richter at 770-856-4182 or visit www.ptcteapartypatriots.org.

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