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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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.”