TUSTIN : Filing Begins for 3 Council Openings

The filing period for the April 10 City Council election, in which three seats will be filled, began this week and already prospective candidates are lining up to run for office.

Two of the open seats have four-year terms and the third, Ronald B. Hoesterey’s unexpired term, is for two years. Hoesterey has resigned from the council. The terms of incumbents John Kelly and Ursula E. Kennedy are both expiring, but Kennedy announced recently that she does not plan to run.

The filing deadline ends Feb. 6.

Kelly, 28, was one of the first to take out candidacy papers from the city clerk’s office. As of Friday afternoon, four people had picked up papers. The others are Berklee Maughan, Jim Potts and John Butler.

Maughan, 52, a retired chief financial officer for a Long Beach company, headed a referendum drive in opposition to the council’s decision to change city elections to April. The referendum effort was abandoned after the city attorney and state officials ruled it was not legal.

Potts, 36, is a public safety supervisor for the city of Irvine and co-owner of a manufacturing company.

Butler, 34, is a self-employed businessman.

Charles Puckett, 46, has also stated his intentions to run but by Friday afternoon had not picked up filing papers. Puckett, a salesman for Beatrice Hunt-Wesson Foods in Fullerton, is a former Tustin planning commissioner and two-time City Council candidate. Mayor Richard B. Edgar and Kennedy backed Puckett when the council attempted to appoint a replacement after Hoesterey’s resignation.