With less than

two months to go until qualifying begins for the Nov. 4 municipal election,

incumbent Dan Tennant remains the only announced candidate for either

of the two Peachtree City Council seats up for grabs.

But that may

change soon, say several people active on the city's political scene.

Sources say

multiple candidates may soon announce to run against Tennnat, who is wrapping

up his first four-year term on the council, as well as to fill the seat

left vacant by longtime council member Annie McMenamin, who is retiring

on term limits after more than 13 years in city politics.

All who join

Tennant by throwing the proverbial hat into the ring will do so knowing

this could be among the most fractious elections in city history.

On one side

is Tennant, who ran on a slow-growth, antiestablishment platform four

years ago and openly supported Steve Brown in Brown's run for mayor in

2001.

But in the

18 months that Brown has been in office, Tennant and the mayor have developed

disagreements on a number of high profile issues most notably Brown's

attempts to limit the duties of the city development authority, and his

charges that authority members acted illegally in amassing millions in

debt over a period of years.

Tennant has

said Brown misled voters as to his true intentions during the election,

and accused the mayor of being on a "path of personal destruction"

in the current campaign.

Brown has admitted

he is seeking a "viable" candidate to oppose Tennant in the

November election, and has called it "sad" that Tennant has

"gone to the other side."

McMenamin,

on the other hand, who has seen more change in the community during her

tenure on the council than perhaps any other elected official in Peachtree

City's history, said recently that she's aware of residents who are interested

in replacing her and who are exploring the possibility of running, but

would not reveal any specific names.

Tennant, meanwhile,

is taking advantage of his April announcement to seek reelection, and

is already lining up key members of his campaign team. Last week, he tapped

Pat Underwood, a three-year resident of the city and CPA, to serve as

his campaign treasurer.

He is still

shopping for a campaign chairman, according to a press release submitted

Meanwhile,

founders of the a new Peachtree City-focused Political Action Committee,

DIRECT PAC, are quietly gearing up for what they anticipate will be anything

but a quiet election season.

"If you

look at the makeup of the City Council, it's almost got to be a race to

see who is going to go in and challenge (Brown) and his ideas," said

Rex Green, chairman of DIRECT PAC. That's because both McMenamin and Tennant,

in recent months anyway, have been vocal about their displeasure with

the direction of Brown's administration. The other two council members,

Murray Weed and Steve Rapson, are generally regarded as Brown sympathizers

Making the

race more interesting is the fact that McMenamin and Tennant both sit

to the right of Brown on the council dais, while Weed and Rapson sit to

his left.

That potential

for conflict is what discourages many qualified candidates from running

for public office in Peachtree City, said former council member Carol

Fritz, who lost her reelection bid to Weed in 2001.

"Given

the political atmosphere in Peachtree City, people don't want to be set

themselves up, they don't want to be attacked," she said. That might

also explain why candidates have been slow to emerge this summer, she

said. "They will wait until their campaign is together and are ready

to go. If they announce now, that will just give (the opposition) more

time to trash them."

Green said

his committee knows of at least three persons who have indicated privately

they will run in the November race, one against Tennant and two more for

McMenamin's post. Names, however, will remain confidential, most likely

until early August, Green said.

"We're

not ready to take a public position on anybody yet, but we are aware of

some of the other people planning to run," he said. "As for

Tennant, we have not endorsed him. We haven't NOT endorsed him, we just

need time to have a general meeting of our membership once the candidates

are announced and from that we'll vote on how we'll lend our support,

and to who."

DIRECT PAC,

which claims between 60 and 80 members, according to Green, will also

consider hosting some type of candidate forum or debate, perhaps in cooperation

with a local civic organization.

Assuming, of

course, there are candidates.

Fritz said

she doesn't know anybody with real intentions to run in this fall's race,

"Anyone you talk to, the basic feeling is they don't want to be involved,

they don't want to be there, but we really need some good people,"

she said.

Creating a

false sense of security, said Green, is the general feeling among many

Peachtree City residents that things are going OK, or at least have improved.

"Frankly,

I think some of the big issues (involving Brown) have been resolved,"

said Green, pointing to the TDK Boulevard extension and concerns about

the finances and management duties of the development authority.

Fritz offered

a different take: "I think it's going to be nasty."

And because

of that, perhaps, it will also be expensive, she suggested.

"One of

the things that people don't understand is it costs a lot of money to

run a campaign here, to try and get people's attention," she Fritz

said. "Just to get the name recognition, you've got to do a lot of

mass mailings and hit every household."

Fritz said

she still carries $8,000 in personal debt from her two election campaigns,

she said. She encouraged the city's voters to contribute to the candidates

they embrace once they announce for the election.

"Campaigns

cost a lot of money, even at the local level."