Kelli Linville announced her candidacy for mayor of Bellingham.  In a press release that has been anticipated for weeks, she committed to the campaign this afternoon. Filing is June 6 to 10.

She will run against first term mayor Dan Pike.  While Dan and Kelli are both considered Democrats, Dan ran four years ago without the support of the local party.  Both he and Kelli are expected to seek the endorsement of the Ds this year.   Barry Buchanan, who had announced for mayor last year, has today announced he will not run for mayor and instead seek reelection to his City Council seat.  And then we hear, reliably, that a third candidate will file for mayor - one from the conservative side of our politics. If we do have a third candidate, it will be an interesting 7 weeks to the August 16 primary. 

The Herald reporters were speculating earlier today on Kelli's filing and the Herald political blog was filled with anonymous comments prior to Kelli's announcement.  Dan Pike is very active on the Herald blogs - providing first person quotes for it.   However, so far, in the three hours after her announcement, only Joe Wilson and Doug Karlberg have commented on the Herald blog.

Kelli's announcement is brief and worth posting.  

"Today, Kelli Linville, former state representative, announced her candidacy for mayor of Bellingham. Citing strong community support, she stated that voters deserve choices in their local elections and a vigorous debate on the future of Bellingham and the course to achieve our goals.

"The difficulties Bellingham has faced over the past four years accomplishing its goals on the waterfront, public safety, and other areas has created a need for new leadership that can build the important relationships all communities need to thrive. Based on my lifetime of experiences growing up in Bellingham and the two decades of representing our larger community at the state level, I have built those very relationships that we need to move our vibrant and unique community forward and create the wonderful environment, strong economy and safe neighborhoods for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren."

My personal observation: 

Dan Pike is very vulnerable to a good challenge by Kelli. Dan has disappointed many of those who originally supported his election in 2007 by ignoring his campaign promises. Dan has ignored issues such as the anti-business attitude of city hall departments and the issues of Lake Whatcom and our water supply. Contrary to his campaign talk, he caved to the Port's controversial waterfront plan without reexamining it. Many other issues will come out during the campaign and we shall watch with hope to see how Kelli addresses these and other issues.

Some I have talked with say they will support Pike because he is better than Asmundson. Boy, that's not much of an endorsement. It appears Dave Warren will bring the unions to support Pike. Dave is all-powerful with the local unions.  So we will see normally allied liberal factions split on which candidate to support.  It will be a hard fought campaign.  And if Petree files, then we are in for a fun primary election.