The time has come for City Council to vote on the latest rezoning effort at the end of the airport runway to change industrial zoned property into residential.

This may very well be the last major attempt to rezone a significant area of Peachtree City. It happens to be the most illogical of all rezoning requests in memory.

My position is clear: No, no, no.

There are so many reasons this doesn’t make sense, it’s beyond belief we have to ask certain council members to vote no.

Ask yourself, what is the motivation of rezoning this area? Clearly, when the airport authority says 10 of the proposed homes are violating FAA location guidelines, the entire 80-home subdivision would be subject to airport noise. There’s no sense in asking the mayor to vote no as this is one of his last grand exit items on his agenda.

If approved, it will saddle future city councils with questions and budget concerns on how to maintain a new oddball cart path to be created by the developer. It just doesn’t make sense.

The infrastructure for a residential area in this location is simply going to be a huge headache in the future. Not to mention the poor residents who buy into this area.

But the advocates of this project are really only interested in their short-term gain. The future of this project only hints at the problems to be encountered five, 10 or more years down the road. Precedent will be set for the rest of the zoned industrial area.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Lawyers have an extremely good track record of getting their clients what they want. I’ve had way too much experience with double-talk indicating this rezoning won’t set precedent. The original city planners set aside this area specifically to keep industrial and residential away from each other. They don’t mix.

I don’t care if you put million-dollar homes in there; it’s not going to be livable in the future. Common sense, folks, common sense.

Let me be clear to any council member who votes yes for this project to rezone industrial to residential at the June 18 City Council meeting. Your term will essentially be over. I’m sure they know that, but for the mayor it doesn’t matter as he already realizes the obvious: he wouldn’t/couldn’t get reelected.

The mayor needs two council members to turn to the dark side. If you vote for this rezoning you will not be doing what a clear majority of the citizens desire. Nor will I let the citizens forget how you voted.

Fiscal and development management are key to our city’s future. We’re at a crossroads right now in light of the recent budget proposal. I’m pleased to see several of my observations in my last editorial were included in the FY2010 budget.

I’m especially pleased funding was denied for the 100 percent salary increases for the four council members ($6,000 per year to $12,000 per year) and mayor ($9,000 per year to $18,000 per year). The budget included my thoughts of not filling several vacant positions needlessly.

But don’t kid yourselves; there is still a lot of waste. Accepting another tax increase and dipping into another half million dollars of reserves is not balancing the budget.

The current leadership put us into this position three years ago when budgets started including ballooning reserves use. I keep asking myself, why didn’t they tighten the purse strings three years ago and “find” all these cuts they are now finding? Did it really take a national economic crisis for them to do the job they should have been doing all along? Would we have needed to raise taxes over and over again? Would we have needed to use millions of dollars of reserves?

The council and city manager have a duty to come to work every single day with the attitude of what can I do to save the city a buck while keeping or improving city services. That has clearly not been done for at least the last three years. Only recently have cuts been identified. Why not three years ago?

A simple scan of the last three years’ budgets showed we could have saved at least $3 million if things had been managed with diligence. I will not allow this mismanagement to happen in the future.

Like I said previously, I managed a billion (“B”) dollar satellite program and brought the project in on schedule and on time. I was the program manager for the $100 million-plus primary payload of space shuttle mission #39 (STS Discovery). We executed a flawless mission while minding the financials.

I have over and over again managed major projects much more demanding than our current council has done. How we got into this mode of constant tax increases and using reserves mess is now moot. We need someone who can get in there and straighten things out. I volunteer.

Please come out and support me this November. I am running for City Council Post 1 as a new candidate into the political arena. I will bring common sense and fiscal responsibility to Peachtree City.

Don’t forget to checkout my website, ReturnToTheVision.com. It has information about me, downloadable campaign signs, my campaign email address and other interesting information.

Early in my campaign I indicated my unfamiliarity with Robert’s Rules. That has now been corrected. I read the book and put together a six-page outline of the parliamentary rules. This is in my website, too. It’s really quite simple and in the environment of our small city, following parliamentary rules will be a breeze.

Eric Imker

Candidate for City Council Post 1

ReturnToTheVision.com

Peachtree City, Ga.