MARIETTA - Christopher Neill believes in hands-on learning, which helps explain why the 32-year-old educator is running for mayor in his first campaign for elective office.

"If you believe in something, you should do it," Neill said.

The hands-on concept is how Neill, a Georgia Tech graduate, taught chemistry, physics and robotics at Wheeler High School for six years. He is now self-employed, and travels around the Southeast to work with teachers through the New Hampshire-based CPO Science firm.

He and his wife, Stephanie, moved to Marietta seven years ago, and Neill has had his eye on City Hall for a few years. He has very strong opinions about what goes on there, he said, and knows others do too.

"But I could not believe that in a city of 60,000 people, only one person (Steve Tumlin) had announced they were running for mayor," Neill said. "It's one thing to sit back and complain, but then when only one person's running, you don't have a right to complain anymore."

Leadership "There could be more positive leadership at City Hall, and that is the type of leadership I would like to bring. You have to work together with different kinds of people, and I think that is missing when I watch City Hall in their day-to-day actions."

He began teaching, in fact, "to have a positive impact on people like me who didn't come from the best socio-economic situation and used public education as a way to get up and get out of some bad situations."

Neill spent much of his childhood in Jonesboro after his parents divorced when he was 3. He was the first person in his family to graduate from college.

Parks bond "I'm against tax increases for the sake of tax increases.

"I didn't see in the master plan a maintenance plan. But you can't have all these new soccer fields or basketball court or what have you and not need people to maintain them. So we have a tax increase to build the parks, and then maybe later on, a tax increase to maintain them. I see that sort of snowballing.

"I'm probably going to vote against it."

Transportation Although Neill acknowledges traffic congestion is a problem, he is not anxious to do anything on Whitlock Avenue.

"I want to see what effect the Windy Hill-Macland Road Connector has on some of that Paulding and west Cobb traffic. Our citizens (along Whitlock) are very vehemently opposed to widening it, and that's the first thing we should consider. Let's see what other options we can come up with."

Future of the City City Hall needs better public relations, Neill said.

"The conference center bonds issue, for example. It could have gone over a lot smoother if they had started the process backwards. Start off with the citizens committee to make sure this is the right thing to do. Next, get legal opinions from experts who don't have a vested interest in the deal.

"Then put all this information out there and let people read it. Put it on the Web site - that's what it's for. And give them a couple of days to review it. It turns out that it's probably a good deal for the city long-term. But how they handled the public relations part made it seem scandalous."

Why he's the best candidate "I don't think having experience is necessarily what's necessary to being mayor. I don't have political baggage. I can provide a fresh perspective on government, not having any preconceptions about what should be or should not be," said Neill, who is financing his campaign mostly from his own pocket.

"I can focus on what's best for the citizens of Marietta."