Congratulations to Peachtree City for being ranked #8 in the nation by a recent CNNMoney poll. This despite attempts by certain council members to change our village concept. The village concept was mentioned in the CNN article.

Peachtree City is a great place to live, but we need to be constantly vigilant to keep it that way. Public outcry on various issues means a lot to elected officials. At times they hear us; at other times they ignore us.

We have a chance on Nov. 3 to vote for the next four years of leadership. We should vote for those who are trying their best to keep our village concept. Haddix and Sturbaum are.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be an incumbent running on a voting record that includes supporting selling city streets to allow another big box store, or supporting another traffic light on Ga. Highway 54 West, or supporting Callula Hills rezoning from industrial to residential at the end of the city airport.

Many of you have seen me recently at my “Meet the Candidate” venues around town last week. I’ve been at the Library three times, the Gathering Place, the Kedron Field house, Huddleston Pond and the dock on the east side of Peachtree Lake. Hundreds of folks have seen me.

I have been astonished that 100 percent of every single person, perhaps 70 folks over the last week that have actually come up and talked to me, have indicated the voting block of Mayor Logsdon and council members Boone and Plunkett have to go. 100 percent!

Rest assured every new candidate in this election will have a platform advocating the village concept and supporting our police and fire departments. It’s going to be tough when more and more candidates declare over the next few months. Is it worth the $360 to add your name to the ballot to run for a council post?

You bet it is! I’m running not only to change the direction our majority council (Logsdon, Boone and Plunkett) have with crazy rezoning but with our financial management. I’ve been saying since last year June we need to eliminate the waste. It wasn’t until this year council got serious. Then in a knee-jerk reaction to the panic mode they got us into, 23 landscaping folks were fired.

Indeed we’re getting down to finding the waste that’s been there over many years. We will have a budget for next year, but look ahead: 2011 is going to be a killer year with tax hikes galore as we try to undo all the financial fat that has crept in over the last few years.

I don’t want to take the blame for the $250 or more per family tax hike in 2011 when it was the current administration’s doing. I’m writing this now as a disclaimer for this time next year.

A blog recently had several great questions for me. If you have a few extra minutes, read below and you’ll get a dose of how Imker will lead in the future.

Question 1. How do you propose to balance the budget?

I have the time to dive into every department’s budget first-hand and review the books. I will get help doing this. Waste will be found but will likely be unintentional. Once I, and others, are convinced we have a realistic budget for each department, we’ll do the math.

New hires will not be paid on the backs of other departments or the firing of other department personnel. All future new hires in, say, Police, Fire, EMS, Rec, etc., will be paid by a small tax increase for those needed new hires. I’m not going to hide behind some ignorant blanket statement that I won’t raise taxes. If we need more employees, we pay for it. The citizenry must and will understand.

Hiring more police because we have more crime to deal with means we all must pay. I’m generally the last one to say I advocate more tax but buying short-term budget relief with city reserves is a no-win situation. Hence our current budget problem.

Services in total should not be cut. However, there may be a need to redistribute funds for these services depending on what our citizens desire. Again, I’m not so ignorant to think a few will get a majority of the funding. Nor will I be bullied into any such situation. I have no motive other than the fair distribution of our city services.

Question 2. Since most of PTC is already built out, the developers are not the problem ...

You’re kidding, right? We’ve had 50 years to get 95 percent of the city developed properly. Now with the current majority leadership on council, we’re poised to blow it with the remaining 5 percent. Certain politicians are only interested in their own future and seem not to care about the rest of the city’s final development. Hence my continued bashing with letters of recent past. We need to get those politicians out of there before they can do any more damage.

I’m 100 percent positive this election will bring back sanity, confidence and respect to our future city council. Nearly all the newcomers in this election are already committed to change the current situation. Incumbents who have voted to “stick us” with rezoning, not in our interest, will be voted out.

I intend to not only campaign for myself, but against those who are trying to run on a platform of, “Hey, look at all the good things I’ve done.” I’ll point out all the crummy things they’ve done and make sure the voters know of alternative candidates.

Question 3. What other issues are important to you?

Of course I support Police, Fire and EMS, which all candidates will say, and I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I truly believe those department heads will tell us what they need in time for us to fund their needs. The various commissions and authorities are important because that’s where you’ll find the citizen volunteers speaking their minds on details. I find all recreational activities important. Hence my presence as one of the five recreation commissioners.

I really don’t like the fee structure for our own citizens using our own facilities. For example, I believe the “high” price to use the Kedron swimming pool on a weekend day is too much. Imagine spending $20 to take the family there, one time for just a couple hours. This is not going to happen on a regular basis for most people.

The cost of providing the service versus the cost of paying for the service needs to be carefully examined. There are so many services that need to be looked at that it will take a good long time to review them all.

But the bottom line is the city should not be trying to use our services as a revenue generator. User fees should pay for the cost (people and material) and ongoing maintenance of the facilities. Of course the need for small revenue could be justified for future enhancements outside the current service provided. But that’s why we elect our decision-makers.

Public services are another important issue to me. I would have handled the recent firing of 23 public employees much differently. Controlled, incremental changes when required should be the way to change service in this area. Working with and asking the various department directors for their input, listening, counter-proposing and coming to a synergistic solution has always worked for me in the past. This approach would be applied to all department directors.

Question 4. What do you think should be done to move unsold houses in town and fill the empty shopping centers?

I have no control over the marketplace. However, what we can do is set up the rules so everyone can compete fairly. Filling empty shopping centers does not begin by rezoning undeveloped land to make it possible for additional competition to come in when there was none before. Existing original shop owners based their location and strategy on the existing zoning. When government changes the existing rules, guess what? You get empty shops.

We need to give businesses confidence that our city council is not going to stick it to them in the future, either by taxing them or by rezoning to allow for predator competition.

Annexing more land to build additional housing is obviously going to hurt existing unsold homes. We need to demonstrate to future prospective homeowners in Peachtree City that this is one heck of a place to live, work and play. Most realize that as soon as they hit the city limits.

Come see me at one of these future “Meet the Candidate” opportunities and let’s talk. Don’t forget to checkout my website or just Google returntothevision. The first result is my web home page. It has information about me, my calendar, downloadable campaign signs, my campaign email address and other interesting information.

Eric Imker

Candidate for City Council Post 1

Peachtree City, Ga.