Q&A With Peachtree Corners City Council Candidate Brent Johnson

Peachtree Corners Patch asked the 20 candidates for the six council seats on the new Peachtree Corners City Council a series of questions relating to city government for the upcoming Municipal Election on March 6, 2012.

Each of the candidates were asked the same set of questions. The last question we posed was to ask each candidate to compose his or her own question and provide the answer.

Here Patch introduces Brent Johnson, one of three candidates seeking to fill the council seat for Post 5.

Name: Brent H. Johnson, age 34

Lived in Peachtree Corners: 4 years, lived in Norcross and Duluth all my life.

Educational background: B.S. Degree from the University of Georgia in Risk Management and Insurance

Family: Married—Wife, Michelle M. Johnson, daughter, Caitlin Johnson

Military Background: N/A

Occupation: Commercial Lines/Brokerage Manager for Burns & Wilcox.

What experience in your background do you think has best prepared you for serving on the Peachtree Corners City Council?

Working on the city council with five other representatives and the mayor requires the ability to work with differing opinions and personalities and build a working consensus for governing the city.  In my daily work life, I build personal relationships and work with hundreds of insurance agents throughout the Southeast.

I currently have 18 people that report directly to me on a daily basis. I have learned how to manage my time, respect other people’s feelings and opinions while still getting a favorable outcome for the parties involved.  The personal relationships that I must build for work, my natural outgoing personality and my background in team sports – displaying the benefits of working with a team – give me the relevant experience to meet my listed goals while serving as City Councilman.

Tell Peachtree Corners readers about your vision for the new city and how you would accomplish it.

Peachtree Corners is a wonderful place to live already and my vision for the new city government is to build the structures within the city government that preserve that way of life.  Fortunately, the new city wasn’t formed because of a substantial negative issue that immediately needed to be fixed. My job on the city council will be to make decisions that will improve the living conditions for all residents of the city and not become a burden like so many other local governments.

To that end there are three main areas where I will focus while serving on the new city council:

Zoning – For anyone owning a home in the city, it is important that the city focus on zoning issues to stabilize and grow home property values and to draw good businesses to the area.  Having good, safe communities within the city improves the quality of life for residents and makes the area attractive to small businesses by giving them the opportunity to have employees desire to live close to their work.

Support Small Businesses – Small businesses drive the growth and quality of life of the residents in any city.  If there is a strong business community, then those workers will have meals close to their office, increasing job opportunities and tax revenues for the city.  To help foster a good relationship with a growing business community, I would make sure the city keeps taxes low, limits the number of needless permits and visits by government workers, and provides a consistent zoning environment.

Keeping Taxes Low – Too often all levels of government, even at the city level, take the opportunity to raise revenues as often as possible by taxing as many services and people as possible.  My vision for the city is to help us prosper by keeping taxes low, consistent and predictable.  As a city, we should not take tax revenue as a given and that any number of pet projects should be undertaken because we can just add ‘a small amount’ to someone’s taxes.

Keeping the city government focused on these issues will allow the city to continue to prosper and keep Peachtree Corners a strong community for raising a family.

What do you think is the greatest challenge facing Peachtree Corners and how would you approach it?

I believe the biggest challenge facing the new Peachtree Corners city government is growing too fast and inefficiently. The main reason many people voted for the new city was to have closer, more direct access to the local government and to keep the already high standard of living in Peachtree Corners. 

The goal of the new city should not be to encumber citizens with another layer of government to tax them and add new regulations, while failing to address the immediate needs.  This is why I will approach this challenge by focusing on keeping the government small, efficient and focused on the limited items desired by many citizens, such as the local zoning.

Don’t want to cause problems that don’t exist trying to solve initial issues.  Keeping the city costs down so the city can continue to grow and not be a burden on the current citizens and new citizens.

The vote for incorporating the city was very contentious resulting in the city being created by a very narrow margin. How, as a city councilman, can I bring together the two sides? 

For many people who voted for the new city, the main factor was a desire to see the positive aspects of Peachtree Corners preserved, which is a strong focus on the local family atmosphere. 

They did not want to see lower income housing built that would suppress property values and potentially attract more crime.  Their goal was not to see additional layers of government and an influx of new taxes and regulations on everyday life. 

For those who voted against the new city, the concern that the new city government would start imposing ever growing new taxes and services was too much of a risk for some additional local control over zoning restrictions. 

My plan to bring together the city is to keep the government small, efficient and transparent.  I will work hard to make sure that zoning issues are addressed from the outset and that the focus of the city council does not drift from the necessary items to pet projects and perks.