It’s offi­cial: We have a con­test­ed may­or’s race here in Redmond!

Ear­li­er today, busi­ness­man and gov­ern­ment effec­tive­ness enthu­si­ast Steve Fields, a long­time res­i­dent of the Bicy­cle Cap­i­tal of the North­west, filed his can­di­da­cy to run for may­or of NPI’s home­town, chal­leng­ing incum­bent John Marchione.

“Red­mond is chang­ing very fast. We are build­ing every­where. We have end­less traf­fic con­ges­tion. Our parks and recre­ation­al facil­i­ties are dete­ri­o­rat­ing, and our neigh­bor­hoods are being ignored while we focus our invest­ment on the changes in down­town. We’re los­ing the beau­ty that is Red­mond; we are los­ing con­fi­dence in lead­er­ship that just doesn’t seem to be able to catch up to the growth smat­tered all over,” Fields said in a press release announc­ing his campaign.

“The cur­rent May­or talks about the impor­tance of city gov­ern­ment liv­ing with­in its means. We have the tools to live with­in the city’s means – in fact, it’s the law in our state. But will city lead­ers’ deci­sions allow small busi­ness­es, peo­ple who are retired, and work­ing fam­i­lies liv­ing in Red­mond to live with­in their means?” he asked.

Fields is pledg­ing to run a grass­roots-ori­ent­ed cam­paign. He says he will door­bell exten­sive­ly in an effort to meet vot­ers and under­stand their concerns.

“I’m ready to lis­ten, some­thing that’s become a lost polit­i­cal art. I’m also ready to hear new ideas and build com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment that’s real, not con­trived meet­ings that lack spir­it and authen­tic­i­ty,” he promised.

Fields, six­ty-two, has a long resume with man­age­ment expe­ri­ence, much of which can be viewed on LinkedIn. He is a co-own­er of Down Pour Cof­fee Bar, a well-reviewed cof­fee spot here in Red­mond. He pre­vi­ous­ly worked for the City of Seat­tle and for King Coun­ty in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent roles: strate­gic advi­sor, busi­ness man­ag­er, and project man­ag­er. Pri­or to that, he worked at West­ern Wire­less and Nex­tel as Region­al Finance Man­ag­er and Region­al Capi­tol Man­ag­er. He has a B.S. in Account­ing from San Diego State University.

Incum­bent May­or John Mar­chione is fin­ish­ing his sec­ond term as the city’s chief exec­u­tive. He has a cov­et­ed posi­tion on the Sound Tran­sit Board of Direc­tors and serves as board chair of the Cas­cade Water Alliance, a munic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion sup­ply­ing fresh water to five cities and two water and sew­er districts.

Pri­or to becom­ing may­or, Mar­chione was the chief finan­cial offi­cer (CFO) for the Mey­den­bauer Cen­ter in Belle­vue, and a Red­mond city councilmember.

Mar­chione was first elect­ed in 2007 in a three-way race with Hol­ly Plack­ett and Jim Robin­son (also vet­er­ans of the Red­mond City Coun­cil), cap­tur­ing over 57% of the vote. He ran unop­posed for reelec­tion in 2011. This time around, though, he’s got com­pe­ti­tion… which is nice to see. Healthy democ­ra­cies require con­test­ed elections.

Red­mond’s city coun­cil posi­tions, on the oth­er hand, could use more can­di­dates. As of this evening, only one can­di­date has filed for each posi­tion — and three of them are incum­bents seek­ing reelec­tion (Hank Myers, Hank Marge­son, and David Carson).