Former Longmont City Councilwoman Sarah Levison has joined the field of candidates for the mayor’s post.
Levison, who filed her candidacy paperwork on Friday, was first elected to an at-large council seat in 2007 and won re-election to a second four-year term in 2011.
Since leaving the council, she’s been active on the Boulder County League of Women Voters board, she said Monday.
As an elected local officeholder, “I’ve always had this collaborative style,” Levison said, something she said she’d continue as Longmont’s mayor.
This is Levison’s second bid for mayor. She finished second in a three-way contest for mayor in 2015, losing to incumbent Mayor Dennis Coombs. Coombs is term-limited and cannot seek re-election this fall.
For now, Levinson’s entry into this year’s mayor’s contest makes it a four-way contest. Also seeking the seat are: Councilman Brian Bagley, an attorney; former Mayor and Councilman Roger Lange, who is a financial consultant; and software architect Véronique Bellamy, who last year lost a contest for the Regional Transportation District board’s eastern Boulder County seat.
Levison predicted that she and the other mayoral candidates “are going to have a really, really good conversation about the issues” facing Longmont and their viewpoints about how those issues should be addressed.
Levison said one of the issues she’ll be focusing on is Longmont’s “fiscal resiliency” and that she’ll be working to get voters “to understand our financial house” and whether that house is in order.
Utility bills “have become very, very high for most people,” she said, adding that she wants to make sure that those rates are “reasonable for the services they’re paying for.”
Also needing to be addressed, in the event of cutbacks in federal or state programs serving Longmont and its residents, are what the city’s role might be in offsetting those reductions, Levison said.
More candidates for mayor and for the three other Longmont City Council seats up for election this fall — two at-large seats representing the entire city and the Ward 2 seat that represents the parts of south and southwest Longmont — may emerge in the days ahead. Candidates can begin circulating petitions on Tuesday to get the registered voters’ signatures needed to qualify for the November municipal election ballot. Completed petitions must be turned in on or before Aug. 28.
Announced candidates for the Ward 2 council seat are incumbent Councilman Jeff Moore, a retired engineer, and challenger Marcia Martin, a retired computer technologist.
Three candidates have already launched bids for either of the two at-large council seats up for election this year: incumbent Councilwoman Polly Christensen; former Councilman Ron Gallegos, who is an art gallery owner and financial consultant; and Aren Rodriguez, a real estate appraiser.
John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc
