By John Fredericks / STAFF

“Calling citizens to their better angels.” Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln had it right,” explains Post 3 Alpharetta City Council candidate John Keim. “He saw government as way for citizens to serve their neighbors, not the other way around. The government model I believe in is what John Adams advocated: you offer your service, then you leave.”

Keim, a retired business executive who made his fortune in mutual funds, says he is a different kind of candidate. “I will only serve one-term,” Keim promises. “Our Founding Fathers envisioned a citizen government and that’s good enough for me,” he says. Now independently wealthy, Keim has also pledged to donate his entire city council salary – provided he gets elected- to his church.

But his opponents have lambasted him for that, claiming that is nothing more than political stunt that he can leverage due to his personal wealth.

“It’s not a political ploy,” Keim said. “For me, its just the right thing to do.” Keim defended his “accept no pay” pledge further by claiming that it is consistent with his ideology. “My philosophy is most important to me, and this is a core value of mine,” Keim answered. “I’m playing my game, and I’m doing it right.”

Keim said his recent decision to seek public office is about “taking a stand against all the crazy things going on.”

Keim says if you want to do something, run for office. “So I did,” he said. 

POLITICAL NEWCOMER

Keim, from New Jersey, moved his family of what are now six to Alpharetta from Ohio eight years ago. Although he has not been politically active in Alpharetta, he served on the school board in Ohio before relocating. But Keim says there is more to running for office than being vested in local politics. “I have been intricately involved in the community since I arrived here,” said Keim. “I helped build the Alpharetta High School athletic department from the ground up, including the development of 20 new athletic teams, and now I help run the Grid-Iron Club.” Keim currently serves as the high school’s J.V. basketball coach.

Touting his qualifications, Keim said he is the only candidate running who has served in elective office and has managed budgets bigger than Alpharetta’s. “People trust me with both their money and their children, and I have thrived in that environment,” Keim offered.

KEIM’S BIG ISSUES

Keim says that Alpharetta, and other cities, have lost the concept of public safety. “Now its about revenue generation,” Keim said. He maintains that cops are stopping people for minor offenses, like seat belt violations, to gain fine money. “It’s a miss-use of cops’ time and precious safety resources,” Keim asserted.

Keim is pushing a platform of financial austerity that he promises to follow if elected. He says the city has to continue to find ways to cut costs and gain economic efficiencies. “I want to pay off the city’s $43 million debt and find a solution to the $2.3 million pension under funded shortfall by the time my one term is completed,” he said.

Keim described himself as being “pathological” about debt reduction and said he would want to cut expenses to make higher short-term debt payments.

Keim predicted a “coming economic reckoning” and questioned whether the city – or the state – had prepared for it.

Keim questioned Alpharetta’s obsession with maintaining the city’s much ballyhooed AAA bond rating. “If you don’t need to take on debt, who cares what the bond rating is?” he asked. “I don’t want to float bonds. My goal is to get the city to a point where our bond rating is [irrelevant] because we have no debt.”

“Call me the Dave Ramsay of politicians,” he concluded.

BLASTS THE CITY CENTER BOONDOGGLE

Like one of his opponents in the race, Tom Miller, Keim harpooned the failed City Center project and its $25 million taxpayer funded bond price tag. “When you get government tax dollars involved you stifle innovation –you choke off the entrepreneurial spirit,” Keim hypothesized. “When we get into the game of the government picking winners and losers, we have one assured outcome: the taxpayers always lose.”

Keim added that downtown is stagnated because merchants and landowners are waiting for the city to do something. “They are waiting around for the city to buy their property,” Keim said.

He promised that if elected he would visit each of them with a message: lets work together and find our own way to re-energize the area, and forget the about the government.

MAGICAL MILTON COUNTY

Keim says he is very motivated about the potential of creating Milton County and sees Alpharetta at the epicenter of the new county, if it comes to pass. “Milton County has the potential to be one of the most dynamic, conservative, free market experiences in America,” Keim says. “With the entrepreneurial spirit and creativity of our North Fulton residents, we will see magic,” Keim predicted.

He says Alpharetta should lead the way by demonstrating to state legislators whose votes are needed next year to pass the constitutional amendment to create Milton county that you can increase services and lower costs at the municipal level. “These are not mutually exclusive if you manage it right,” Keim said.

“I want every voter to know that the day Milton County comes into effect that their services will go up, their taxes will go down, and their net worth will rise because their property values will increase by 20 percent over-night.”

CAMPAIGN KEIM: DECLARATION OF WAR

“I’m declaring war on the low expectations that people have for their public officials,” Keim announced. “But like Ronald Reagan, I’m a happy warrior.”

Keim says he ultimately wants to “act as a trusted guardian for the city’s prosperity, safety, and way of life.”

And so goes the candidacy of Keim, as he seeks to upset current campaign front-runners Tom Miller and Chris Owens in the upcoming Alpharetta municipal election.

His long shot bid, viewed as quixotic just a few weeks ago, just might pay-off.