John Park was officially elected mayor of Brookhaven, Georgia, on Tuesday night, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The Korean American city councilmember is the state’s first Asian American mayor.
Park received 59% of the vote (3,564 votes), winning the runoff against Lauren Kiefer, 11 Alive reports.
According to Park’s campaign website, his family immigrated to Alabama from South Korea when he was six years old. A few years later they moved to Decatur, Georgia, where he went on to attend high school at Decatur High. After high school, he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration at Emory University.
Park worked for IBM out of college. He met his wife Morgan Harris in 2003 and moved to Paris for two years so she could practice international finance law.
The newly elected mayor has lived in Brookhaven since 2007. He served as District 2 city council member for nine years before leaving the position to run for mayor in August 2023.
Throughout his campaign, Park highlighted his work on the city council to keep taxes low and improve green space. He hopes to be a mayor that betters Brookhaven.
“We’re going to do great things together… I’ll be a mayor for ALL of Brookhaven, especially those that didn’t vote for me. Thank you to every single one of you that called your friends and volunteered. It’s you that won, not me. It’s Brookhaven that won tonight,” he said during a victory speech per 11 Alive.
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