LAKEPORT — Three Lakeport City Council seats are open in the November 4 election, and incumbents Buzz Bruns, Roy Parmentier and Robert Rumfelt will have to vie with challengers Ginger Ingersoll and Suzanne Lyons to fill them.
Parmentier and Rumfelt were not available for interviews Wednesday, and confirmed their intentions to run and discussed priorities Thursday. Ingersoll and Lyons confirmed they are gathering signatures in lieu of filing fees, and intend to file as official candidates by the Aug. 8 filing deadline.
Parmentier is serving his fourth term on the council. He was first elected in 1988, then took a break to run for a seat on the board of supervisors in 2000. He was re-elected to the Lakeport City Council in 2004.
“We have some really exciting things happening in the city now,” Parmentier said, adding that he is running because he wants to keep the ball rolling. He named getting the general plan done, rehabilitating city streets and getting the city”s budget in order as priorities for the next four years.
“Once we get over this fiscal crisis we”re going through now, with the barebones budget this year and the one proposed for next year, we should be in pretty good shape,” Parmentier said.
Rumfelt is serving his third consecutive term. He was first elected in 1996. He said he is running because he wants to keep the momentum of redevelopment and downtown revitalization going, among other projects.
“I want to carry on with the things we started and make sure they come to a finish. I think one of our particular challenges for next year with the city manager going to Iraq will be keeping all this going with a slimmer staff,” Rumfelt said.
Lyons is a retired teacher who said she thinks Lakeport residents need to be more involved in the city”s decision-making process.
“I think the city council meetings need to be more public,” Lyons said, adding that the city had been offered a Web cam and the technology to stream the meetings online.
“Those have to be available for people who can”t get there,” Lyons said.
Ingersoll is a retiree and volunteer. She said she doesn”t plan to make a lot of changes, but said Measure I money could be “better distributed into other services.”
“I would just like to see things run smoothly, pay really good attention to how we spend our money, and make sure all the services we depend on are available to us,” Ingersoll said.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
