LYNN – Ward 5 City Council candidate Jake Keo knows how he wants to improve Lynn but he also wants to hear other residents? ideas and he has placed a suggestion box on his 98 Hanover St. property.?Please stop by and let me know what ideas or concerns you may have for our ward,” he wrote in a campaign statement.Keo moved to Lynn in 1989 and bought his Hanover Street home with his wife, Samnang, in 2008.?I?m running because my wife and I decided to raise our family here and said we could improve Lynn starting with keeping our streets clean and healthy,” Keo said.Keo, 42, said his parents were successful business owners in Cambodia when Khmer Rouge guerilla soldiers led by Pol Pot took over the Southeast Asian country and forced Cambodians out of their homes and into rice fields.His parents and two of his brothers “died at the hands of this brutal regime,” he wrote in his campaign statement. Orphaned at the age of 7, Keo came to the United States in 1981 and lived in New Jersey and other places before moving to Lynn. He attended English High School and graduated from Veterans Memorial High School in Peabody.He earned a business administration degree from the former Salem State College and has worked for 10 years at Wal-Mart and Walgreens, where he is currently a Stoneham store manager.Keo and his wife bought their home at an auction and said the property was classified as abandoned when they purchased it.?My neighbors tell me it used to be the ugliest house on the street,” he said.Keo said the work he put into restoring his home and work his neighbors have done on their homes proves Lynn neighborhoods can be improved street by street. If elected, he said he will hold “community engagement” meetings to discuss neighborhood improvements.He said the city must do more to promote local business opportunities and to keep businesses in Lynn. Lowering the current commercial tax rate from $34.55 per $1,000 value could help keep existing businesses in the city and attract new ones, he said.Keo wants to extend tax financing benefits “to all sizes of businesses” and he said the city should host events like international food festivals and advertise them on billboards on Route 1 and other locations.Keo said he helped organize a May 2012 neighborhood meeting to discuss the rodent problem on side streets off Washington Street, including Hanover.?It was a start and I think I?ve helped bring the problem to the city?s attention,” he said.Although he has been interested in running for political office “for a long time,” Keo said his Ward 5 campaign is a chance to help make Lynn a better place for his daughter, Malena.?I want her to have opportunities when she grows up and I want to help improve the city,” he said.Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].