Three open City Council seats are generating a lot of interest in Portland, including a four-way race in District 5 that includes a former councilor and a former state senator and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate.

This fall’s municipal elections will coincide with the presidential election and take place against a backdrop of an economy struggling to recover from closures and other regulations stemming from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which will likely shape the city budget over the next year or more.

Also, national calls for an end to systemic racism have come to Portland, where officials set up a steering committee to issue recommendations to the City Council. A homeless encampment has highlighted a different national issue that has been a long-standing challenge for Portland. And city residents are gearing up for a review of the city’s constitution that could lead to changes to power structure between the professional city manager and the elected mayor.

Apart from three of the nine council seats being up for grabs on Nov. 3, six local referendums will be on the Portland ballot. Those questions would eliminate the cap on recreational marijuana stores, establish a $15-an-hour minimum wage, establish rent control and other renter protections, ban facial recognition technology, add restrictions to short-term rentals, and create a local green new deal that would increase affordable housing requirements in some projects, improve energy efficiency standards and increase pay for workers on publicly funded projects, among other things.

All told, it will be one of the most consequential city ballots in recent memory.

Aside from the referendums, the top prize this fall will be the at-large council seat being vacated by Jill Duson, who is not seeking re-election after more than two decades in elected office. It’s one of four seats on the council, including the mayor’s, that represent the entire city instead of a single district.

Four candidates are vying to replace Duson, including City Councilor Justin Costa, a 37-year-old accountant who is leaving his District 4 seat after two terms. Costa will face April Fournier, a 40-year-old member of the Dine’ (Navajo) Nation and special services manager at a local Head Start agency; Laura Kelley, a 48-year-old retired pediatrician and assistant clinical professor; and Ronald Gan, a 70-year-old developer and real estate professional.

In District 5, two well-known political figures are running in a four-way race to replace Kimberly Cook, who is not running for re-election. District 5 neighborhoods include North Deering, Deering Center and Riverton.

The two former elected officials in the race are John Coyne, who represented the district for two terms before stepping down in 2014; and Mark Dion, a 65-year-old lawyer who has also been a Portland police deputy chief, Cumberland County sheriff, state senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

Other candidates are Kathryn Sykes, a 51-year-old writer, community organizer and former secretary and co-chair of the Southern Maine Democratic Socialists of America; and Kenneth Capron, a 69-year-old accountant, systems analyst and financial fraud investigator who recently advocated for housing the city’s homeless population on an old cruise ship and for “micro-rail” transportation in Portland.

Two candidates are competing for the District 4 seat representing East Deering and Back Cove that is being vacated by Costa: Andrew Zarro, a 32-year-old small-business owner; and Rosemary Mahoney, a 55-year-old UniServ director for the Maine Education Association, where she advises local school unions on how to organize and operate.

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