Four vying for three seats on Lafayette City Council

LAhAYdTTd >> Four candidates, representing a mix of civic officials and a well-known community activist, are running for three seats on the Lafayette City Council on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The candidates are Lafayette City Council incumbent Cameron Burks; Carl Anduri, a former council member and mayor; Lafayette Planning Commission Vice Chairman Farschad Farzan; and Regina (Gina) Dawson.

Dawson and her husband, Michael Dawson, founded the environmental justice community organization Save Lafayette Trees, which has been critical of PG&E’s oversight of gas lines over safety issues. Both Gina and Michael Dawson are members of the city’s gas safety task force.

Two seats on the council opened up with the retirement of Mayor Mike Anderson and the decision by council member Steven Bliss to not seek election after he was appointed to the council last year.

Regardless of the election outcome, the makeup of the incoming five-member council will be relatively new — the remaining two members, Vice Mayor Susan Candell

and council member Teresa Gerringer, were elected in 2018. And if Dawson is elected, it would mark the first time in the city’s history that women made up the majority of the Lafayette City Council.

Burks said the past four years he has served as mayor, vice mayor and as a council member “have been the proudest in my life.” In Lafayette, the mayor and vice mayor positions rotate among council members.

He said he has the institutional knowledge to bring “continuity to our deliberations and policy considerations.”

Burks has been outspoken about local land-use issues, particularly the Terraces of Lafayette. He described a letter by state Sen. Nancy Skinner supporting the project as meddling and intrusive of city is

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