Former city councilman John Park was elected with 59% of the votes in the runoff election.
Immigration to the United States in the 1970s… City council member since 2014
Victory speech: “A mayor for all residents… we will do a great job”
In Brookhaven, Georgia, former city councilman John Park, a Korean-American, was elected mayor. This is the first time an Asian American has been elected mayor in Georgia.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 11Alive on the 6th (local time), Korean-American former Brookhaven City Councilman John Park recorded 59% (3,564 votes) of the vote in the runoff election on the 5th, and 41% (2,520 votes). He was elected mayor of Brookhaven, defeating candidate Lauren Kiefer, who won . Mayor Park ranked first in the vote percentage in the first round of voting on the 7th of last month, but failed to exceed the majority, so a runoff election was held on the 5th.
Mayor Park’s family immigrated from Korea to Alabama in the 1970s. A few years later, he moved to Decatur, Georgia and attended Decatur High School. After his high school graduation, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Emory University.
Mayor Park, who worked at IBM, a global technology innovation company, after graduating from college, met his wife, Morgan Harris, in 2003 and moved to Paris for two years so that she could work in international financial law.
Afterwards, Mayor Park returned to the United States and has been living in Brookhaven since 2007. He served as a Brookhaven city councilor for nine years starting in 2014 before resigning from council in August of this year to run for mayor.
Throughout the campaign, he emphasized his efforts to lower taxes and improve green space on the City Council.
He said he hopes to become a mayor who leads Brookhaven in a better direction.
In his election victory speech, Mayor Park said, “I will be the mayor for all Brookhaven residents, especially those who did not vote for me,” and added, “We will do great things together.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.