Candidates battle for Urbana council positions

By Crystal Kang

A number of candidates will appear on Tuesday’s ballot for the Urbana City Council, and Ward 2, in particular, will be a highly contested seat.

Urbana Ward 2

CHARLIE SMYTH

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  • Party: Democrat
  • Profession: Manager of System Services for the University’s Department of Crop Sciences
  • Experience: Urbana City Council Alderman (1989-1993), (2005-now); Urbana Free Library Board member (2000-present)
  • Campaign goal: “With respect to students, it’s rental registration and property maintenance. The whole issue of having safe apartments for students because so many students live in Urbana.”

DAVID GEHRIG

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  • Party: Democrat
  • Profession: Works at University’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications research lab
  • Experience: Urbana City Council Alderman summer (2008-present)
  • Sustainability; redeveloping Downtown Urbana
  • Campaign goal: Gehrig could not be reached for comment

MARK MALLON

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  • Party: Green
  • Profession: Senior in LAS; works in shipping warehouse; handles IT units for Hotslots132, an Internet company
  • Experience: Political experience in various campaigns, Campaign manager for Walter Pituc, who ran for Champaign County Board in November 2008
  • Campaign goal: “I would say as far as students go, the important one would be tenant rights, to have stricter laws governing landlords.”

Urbana Ward 3

ROBERT LEWIS

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  • Party: Democrat
  • Profession: Retired
  • Experience: 22 years experience in public service within schools
  • Campaign goal: ”The upgrading of our infrastructure and to provide a voice for the folks of Ward 3.”

Urbana Ward 4

BRANDON BOWERSOX

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  • Party: Democrat
  • Profession: Vice President of Technology at OJC TechnologiesExperience: Urbana City Council Alderman (2005-present); participated in Champaign County’s Long Rage Transportation Plan, Urbana’s Comprehensive Plan update; served as Secretary for Champaign County Democratic Party
  • Campaign goal: “Making great places, building our downtown and our neighborhoods, doing neighborhood preservation.”

Urbana Ward 5

DENNIS ROBERTS

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  • Party: Democrat
  • Profession: Book designer at the University of Illinois Press
  • Experience: Urbana City Council Alderman (2005-present)
  • Campaign goal: “Downtown revitalization ­— I just recently went to a main street conference that gave a lot of really great ideas about giving more life to the downtown, for the future prosperity of the city that’s the most important.”