VENTURA : Councilman Won’t Seek Second Term

As the deadline passed Friday for incumbents to file papers for the Ventura City Council election in November, Councilman Gregory L. Carson announced that he would not be among the 13 candidates running for three open seats.

In a statement issued late Friday, the first-term councilman, who served as mayor in 1992 and 1993, said he would not seek a second term on the seven-member panel.

“It is a very hard decision that I make,” Carson said. “In weighing my needs, the demands of my business . . . and my family commitments, I have decided that I must direct my energies in those places.”

Carson had been wrestling with the decision about whether to run for the past two months, sizing up the competition and meeting with supporters.

Still undecided by late Thursday, Carson took out nominating papers from the city clerk’s office. But he said Friday that he would not turn them in.

The decision by Carson leaves Councilman Jack Tingstrom as the only incumbent seeking another term. Mayor Tom Buford said in May that he would not run again.

The election has drawn a wide variety of candidates, including Ventura Chamber of Commerce President Jim Friedman and Moorpark College administrator Ray Di Guilio.

Also scheduled to be on the ballot are manufacturing engineer Carol Dean Williams, businessman Charles Davis, marketing manager Stephen L. Hartmann, business consultant Brian Lee Rencher, property manager Craig Huntington and attorney Donna De Paola-Peterson.

Other candidates are writer Keith Burns, software consultant John S. Jones, minister Gregory John Marshall and recycling coordinator Christopher Staubach.