Peachtree City has been my home for 18 years. Together we’ll address our traffic issues, stop taxing residents out of their homes, and protect our village concept. Let’s not burst the Peachtree City bubble.

I am an engineer and computer scientist but most importantly I am a professional program manager. Being popular is not a qualification for being mayor. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist either, but I have worked on the Space Shuttle.

I’m a twice elected former City Council member. I’ve led successful multi-million dollar projects with the Air Force, Star Wars, NASA, GM and even Panasonic here in town. Having supervised hundreds of people gives me unique qualifications to set the course for our city.

Most importantly though, I know the citizens. I actually get out there and talk with them at various venues around the city. Hence the 50+ meet and greet campaign stops over the last two months. I encourage questions. I enjoy interacting with citizens. But it won’t end there.

Unlike other politicians who only come out during election season, I will continue to hold meet and greets throughout my four years as mayor. I will encourage HOAs to invite me to their meetings so I can hear firsthand what is on the citizens’ minds. I will continue to make myself available for chats all around the city with hopefully weekly opportunities at various locations.

Things we need to do include returning authority back to our Planning Commission the way it was before city council so unwisely neutered it. The Planning Commission must have the power to hold public hearings so that developers cannot simply bypass our most experienced citizens who know our zoning and planning rules much better than any city council member.

STOP rezoning industrial to residential. We have enough residential. Residential costs the city money by way of supplying police, fire, first responder, road and cart path maintenance, recreation and all the other amenities we offer our citizens. The taxes from residential fall well short of paying for all that.

Every council member knows this yet they have been on a tear rezoning everything to residential everywhere you look. Industry brings new money and new jobs into Peachtree City. Industry is obviously a financial gain, thereby allowing us to potentially lower our millage rate.

We need to stop destroying the wildlife and clear cutting forests to build more commercial and apartments we don’t need. If you want to live on top of somebody there is a city 20 miles north of us that’s just what you’re looking for. Protect our village concept. Keep and expand green spaces. Return village signs to roads leading into those villages. Make our city sophisticated again.

Our millage rate is simply not competitive to other cities. City council raised taxes each of the last three years. Sure, they were small amounts but it sends the wrong message to industry. Industry sees how easily taxes are raised here, they see how high our rates are and choose to go elsewhere. I would.

Of course, this year being an election year the council decided not to raise taxes. How predictable! Last year we had a budget of $40 million. It was known well before this last summer our revenue would be about $6.5 million MORE than anticipated. Yet the city council was unable to lower our millage rate.

This is extremely disturbing. It shows a clear lack of awareness. We have plenty of money now to pay for employee raises, lower our stormwater bills and still have enough to lower our taxes. Anyone who says we can’t afford a tax cut is simply a defeatist.

Lack of policies on any traffic improvement over the last 8 years has been hard to watch. We were promised, by certain council members now running for mayor, that this issue would be addressed. The result has unfortunately been less than desired. There are ways to make improvement but it seems only during election time does this become a concern for sitting council members. That stops now. Traffic improvement solutions will be a major and continuous city council concern.

Golf cart path safety also seems to only be a concern during election season. I’m glad we finally have a committee looking into it now.

Another major discontent is the lack of ability to understand project management and how to control costs. Way too many projects have drastically overrun their budgeted costs. I could list six of them right now, costing us millions and millions in overruns, but that is better left for another letter. You don’t know about this because the city council doesn’t want you to know.

I have done literally dozens of open records requests to find out the true story. It is not a pretty picture. Indeed, it is outright disastrous. I will be the most transparent mayor and lead the next city council into being the most transparent this city has ever seen. I have nothing to hide and I want the citizens to know both the good and the bad of what’s happening. It’s your money. You deserve to know exactly how it’s being spent.

SPLOST projects will become a routine agenda item at every council meeting. SPLOST (the 1% extra sales tax) is equivalent to one-fourth of the entire city annual budget. You need to know if your $10 million a year is being spent wisely. I will ensure you know.

Clearly the city council knows its role is setting policy. But we need to be better at instilling discipline into the other part of the role. That is oversight. We have lost control, financially, of way too many projects due to lack of program management skills on city council.

I have the absolute 100% most experience in managing people and projects with successful results of bringing those projects in on time AND on budget.

Over the last few years the city council has let millions of dollars slip down the preverbal rabbit hole. Honestly, it irks me seeing this happen because in 2010, when I first got on council, we were scraping and begging for every dollar. Nowadays it seems throwing a hundred thousand dollars here and there means nothing. This must stop so we can properly deliver services with our precious citizens’ tax money.

I will listen to all sides of an issue and encourage my fellow council members to do the same. Making time at council meetings to hear our citizens’ comments is important. The two-minute time limit for citizen comment is an insult to our citizens. I will simply ask them not to repeat themselves or others and be respectful.

National pride is an important value I want to inspire in everyone. I realize we are a small community but we are part of the United States. Over the last several years we’ve seen our mainstream news media, Hollywood types, educational types and high tech internet social media including search engines attempt to manipulate and socialize not just our younger generation but everyone. (I generalized here and recognize, “Not all.”)

How can the citizens of Peachtree City support a candidate that supports organizations that want to burn the American flag, defund the police and think rioting, burning and looting is justified for social equality?

I hope this is a generational cyclic occurrence like we’ve had in the past. I’m concerned we may be going over the edge and will lose our country. Pray for us for we have been given the greatest nation ever to exist on the planet. There’s a reason millions of people come north instead of going south to Venezuela to the socialistic h*ll hole they’ve created for themselves down there. People want our freedom, opportunities and justice for all. We have been blessed with all of this as United States citizens. Let’s not lose it.

Some more thoughts on traffic and protecting our village concept.

Traffic during rush hours at Ga. highways 54/74 is horrendous. You have 15-20 light cycle waits with backups down to Lake Peachtree. The problem is the five traffic lights west of that intersection.

Beginning with the light at the Avenue, when it turns red for westbound Hwy. 54 traffic, everything stops. I see it, you see it, how come the city council doesn’t see it? They’ve done literally nothing in the last 8 years to address the problem.

In fact, two of my opponents were on city council with me in 2014 and voted to make things worse by approving yet another light between Walmart and MacDuff Parkway. GDOT sent us a letter saying don’t do it because it will make matters worse. Yet these council members voted to do it, inserting their idea of government prowess into private business decisions.

No! It is not the government’s job to pick winners and losers. Government’s job is to provide a fair playing field for businesses to make their own choices. Adding that additional traffic light allowed the developer to walk away with millions extra while we got worse traffic issues to deal with.

This total waste of spending $12 million on a crazy crossover lane change idea on north/south Hwy. 74 will do nothing to solve the east/west Hwy. 54 problem. Address the Hwy. 54 problem and you don’t get the Hwy. 74 issues.

Stop allowing traffic to turn right on red from Hwy. 74 onto Hwy. 54. Then, only during rush hour, keep the Avenue light green for Hwy. 54. Get that traffic moving and you reduce the blocking the block issues.

Sure, you inconvenience a few dozen folks coming out of the Avenue but they can go around. You make it so thousands of Peachtree City citizens who won’t go out on Hwy. 54 during rush hour can enjoy our own roads again.

There are many other plans we can implement to improve traffic. Solve it, no, but we can improve it. Of course, the long-term solution is a northern bypass between PTC and Tyrone. I have talked to the Coweta County Commissioner of the area bordering PTC and we agree a long-term solution of a bypass is needed.

Protecting our village concept includes NO to more dense-pack housing, apartments, etc. Like I said, if you want to live on top of somebody else, there’s a city 20 miles north of Peachtree City that has what you’re looking for.

We need to stop rezoning all our industrial land to residential. Again, these same two opponents of mine now (who voted for the additional traffic light on Hwy. 54) voted to rezone 86 acres of industrial land to dense pack residential along a railroad track. Good grief. What were they thinking? They weren’t.

I said, it’s perfect for 6 to 8 small industrial plots with perhaps 50-100 employees each. This would bring new jobs and new money into the city. The famous MacDuff bridge over the railroad track included a curb cut to allow a service road to go down along the railroad track to service those small industries. Those industries would never have been seen from MacDuff Parkway because all the trees would still be there. Trucks would never be on MacDuff because they’d shoot out to Hwy. 74. Instead, we got a clear cut of 86 acres of trees thanks to that vote.

Remember, when my opponents say protect the village concept, they voted the opposite.

When my opponents say traffic solutions, they voted the opposite.

There are other clear differences between me and my opponents. I have the experience of working and directing people in both large and small organizations. I have worked with dozens of Ph.D. scientists on the real Star Wars effort ($1 billion+) to leading Boy Scouts for eight years. I have the breadth of experience no one else has. I have advanced degrees in Engineering, Computer Systems and Program Management. No else can say anything close.

I have the proven financial expertise that helped bring Peachtree City from a $22 million deficit in 2010 to a balanced budget in 2015. That is why I voluntarily did not run for another term for city council though I was eligible to run. I stepped down saying I accomplished what I set out to do, i.e., bring our city back to a financially sound ground.

Tough choices had to be made and I made them. No one else in recent memory has voluntarily stepped down as a council member. They all seem to want to be career politicians for 8 years as a council member then 8 more years as Mayor. This is wrong. They need to step aside, like I did, and allow others to have the privilege and honor of being a council member.

I am most curious as to all the lawsuits the city is currently facing. Nobody knows. I guess I’ll have to do more open records requests.

I arrived in Peachtree City in 2003 and worked at Panasonic until 2007. Since then, I have been involved with our community in various ways. They include:

Peachtree City Recreation Commissioner, 2008-2009

Elected twice as City Council member, 2009 (2 years) & 2011 (4 years)

Master Mason in Peachtree City since 2012

Peachtree City Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Graduate, 2016

Renewed CPR Certification, 2016

Georgia Sheriffs Association Honorary Member since 2017

Worthy Patron, Eastern Star since 2019

Fayette County Humane Society Foster Cat Inspector (2019-2020)

American Legion Post #50, Peachtree City, GA since 2019

Director, Peachtree City Monopoly Tournament since 2009 (Over $20,000 cash and prizes given away – no entry fee!)

Director, Peachtree City Golf Cart Scavenger Hunt since 2020 ($1,000 cash given away – no entry fee!)

Donations to Masonic Children’s Home

Donations to Church, Boy Scouts, Rainbow Girls, DeMolay Boys

Facebook People in Need of Donations

Stop Smoking Intervention Donations

Clothes Less Traveled & Goodwill Donations

I am not running for the salary. Instead, I will donate the salary over four years as mayor of $86,400 back to the city. I also do not accept campaign contributions. I consider holding the mayor’s job to be a privilege. I’d rather give back to the city rather than take away from it.

I will always have the best interests of the citizens in mind. My only financial interest in Peachtree City is my home. This leads to the point that I am not beholden to anyone nor any business nor any developer, nor any political party.

Remember my opponents’ funding sources for their campaigns and ask yourself, will their decisions be in the best interest of Peachtree City? My decisions as mayor will ensure our community is the best place to live in the country.

Eric Imker

Candidate for mayor

Peachtree City, Ga.