Updated at 5:30 p.m. Monday with more details

In the first of what is expected to be many campaign announcements in the coming months, Edmonds City Council candidate David L. Teitzel announced he will be campaigning for the Council Position 5 seat currently held by Councilmember Joan Bloom.

Position 5 is one of five Edmonds City Council seats that will appear on the November 2015 general election ballot, along with the position of mayor. Teitzel is the first to formally announce. He has already filed with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission as a candidate and updated his filing last Friday to reflect his intent to run for Position 5. Two other candidates have also filed with the PDC so far — Snohomish County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Adam Cornell and Michael Nelson, who serves as Executive Director of Service Employees International Union, Washington State Council.

Nelson was recently appointed to the City Council to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Strom Peterson. (Cornell and Teitzel also had applied to fill Peterson’s seat.) Nelson will have to run to keep his job this year; other Edmonds municipal positions on the ballot in 2015 include seats held by Councilmembers Tom Mesaros, Lora Petso and Diane Buckshnis, plus the Edmonds mayor, currently Dave Earling. None of the incumbents has formally announced yet whether they plan to seek another term.

The 62-year-old Teitzel, a retired QWest executive, cited his experience in budgeting, marketing and public policy as well as his extensive record of volunteerism, including work with the Jacob’s Well housing facility for homeless mothers, the King County Guardian Ad Litem program for abused/neglected children, children’s ministry and the Sno/King youth sports organization. A former Woodway resident who now lives in Edmonds with his wife, Kathy, he is also past president of the Woodway Highlands Homeowners’ Association.

Teitzel said that the campaign message he is taking out to Edmonds voters is simple: “Be included.”

‘This is near and dear to me,” Teitzel said. “When attending city council meetings you see very often the same cast of characters, providing the same input. I do not believe the totality of our residents are represented at council or heard at council.” Edmonds’ demographic mix is rapidly changing, Teitzel said, noting that as of the last U.S. census,  20 percent of Edmonds residents were non-Caucasian and that the city is seeing significant growth in its Asian, Hispanic and East African populations.

“I intend in the next few months to reach out to those folks and see what is important to them in their city government,” he said. In addition, Teitzel acknowledged another demographic that doesn’t usually have the time or energy to participate in government — parents with young families. “When I was younger, working in my career, I often worked 10 or 12 hour days, and would come home, feed the kids, spend some time with them and put them to bed and that was my day. Those folks need to be heard as well.”

Teitzel and his wife have been married nearly 40 years and have two adult daughters — the older, 25, lives in Tennessee and the younger, 20, is attending college in California. He notes early endorsements from former Edmonds Mayor Gary Haakenson and current Town of Woodway Mayor Carla Nichols, “with many more to come.”

Among the strengths Teitzel said he would bring to the council job is the 10 years he spent as director of public policy for Qwest Communications, during which time he testified in 100 regulatory proceedings. “That work requires that you be completely honest and make cases based on facts and data and not emotion,” he said. “The Edmonds City Council should be making decisions based on facts and data and operate with decorum,” Teitzel said, but “as a citizen I don’t think that’s always the case.”

Noting the amount of money spent during the last two council retreats on team building after periods of conflict among councilmembers and city staff, Teitzel said: “I’m concerned that we are spending thousands of dollars on consultants to help the council learn how to work better with one another, how to work better with city staff and how to work better with the public. I believe that when you accept a city council position, you accept that you work with others. Additional training should not be required at the public’s expense.”

Teitzel also offered his view on key issues, including:

Growth and development. He is committed to maintaining current building height limits in the downtown core, but added that it’s important to plan for growth citywide, noting it’s projected that Edmonds will have an additional 6,000 residents within the next 10 years. “I believe that places like Westgate, places like Firdale, Highway 99, Perrinville, those places are ripe for appropriate expansion where higher buildlngs might be considered so long as they are esthetically pleasing, don’t crowd the street or snarl traffic, provide adequate parking and comply with all codes and ordinances,” he said. “And further, I think redevelopment in those areas could include mixed-use applications where we invite a newer and younger demographic into our city who enjoy living in areas where you can walk to the great amenities in Edmonds,” Teitzel added.

FInancial sustainabiilty. He said he has studied the city’s budget and while he believes that Edmonds “is being run fairly efficiently at this point,” he worries about the city’s labor costs, especially as they relate to the current contract with Fire District 1. With budget projections showing the city in the red in future years, Teitzel said it will take “a combination of managing expenses efficiently and looking at new sources of revenue…that will ease the tax burden on our citizens, and that means getting moving on developing areas like Westgate and Highway 99 to encourage attractive new businesses and construction that will be bring new revenue into the city.” That development “doesn’t need to mean higher buildings, certainly not in core downtown areas of Edmonds,” he stressed.

Environmental protection: “I do support environmental causes and I’m anxious to see the daylighting of Willow creek proceed and to protect, preserve and restore the Edmonds Marsh using the best available science,” he said.

“I have the time, energy and skill set to work collaboratively with the community, council and the mayor’s staff to establish plans and policies to accommodate growth in a well-reasoned manner,” he added.