Hi, and thanks for having me here tonight. First off, I’d like to thank Harold Bost and Bob Ross for this chance to address everyone. I know we have a full slate tonight, and I’ll try to keep this brief.
Tonight, I’d like to talk to you a bit about Peachtree City. I know many of you are saying to yourself that you don’t live in Peachtree City. That doesn’t matter. Let me tell you why.
Right now, the population of Peachtree City is about a third of Fayette County. This isn’t likely to change in the near future.
What this means is that our problems can quickly become your problems. If crime picks up in Peachtree City, it will quickly spread to Tyrone and Fayetteville. If our property values drop, those in Wolsey and Brooks will soon follow. To put this succinctly, we are all in the same boat, together.
Over the last four months, I have repeatedly been asked a question. I am sure many of you already know where this is going. The answer is yes. I am proud to stand before you tonight and announce my candidacy for mayor of Peachtree City.
I am here to tell you we can have responsible leadership. We can have a mayor that has a plan for Peachtree City, and we can have a mayor that can work with the state, the county and surrounding municipalities.
What would I do different? For starters, I will work with GDOT to close the median at Line Creek Road and Ga. Highway 54.
This would prevent a proposed stoplight from being installed at that intersection, which is already the most congested intersection in the city.
I will also fight to ensure that the proposed “Overlook” development is not allowed a curb cut into Planterra Ridge.
We cannot punish these residents by diverting even more traffic through their neighborhood.
In short, I will bring a new concept to Peachtree City planning, the concept of “Do no harm.”
We also have a graying city, and the city has put extensive resources into our senior programs. It is now time to fix our youth programs. We made a start by restructuring user fees. Now, we must do more.
Peachtree City must be promoted as not only a good place to retire, but also a good place to grow up. We have all the pieces. It is now time to unleash the talent we have on our staff to put together a program and market this city to young families.
There is one more thing we can do to encourage young families to move here. We have to make it affordable to live here.
This year, I will propose a 0.2 mill cut in our property taxes. We will do this through a series of sustainable cuts in the city budget.
As I demonstrated in the budgets I submitted last year, we can do this without the major cuts in public safety.
There is also one more thing we can do to bring younger families here. We have a few neighborhoods of starter homes in the city limits. We need to ensure that we do everything we can to enhance the livability in these neighborhoods.
Many of them have a substantial amount of rental properties. We need to ensure that these properties are taken care of as well as owner-occupied properties.
To do this, we need to change the way we do code enforcement. We need to start writing the tickets to the landowners. This will ensure that we do not have absentee landlords. Code enforcement must become a major focus of city government.
I believe that we can work together to make the changes in Peachtree City that benefit all of us. I’m Councilman George Dienhart, and I am asking for your vote in in this falls mayoral election. God bless, and thank you all.
George Dienhart
Post 2, City Council
Peachtree City, Ga.
