Loren Simmonds officially kicked off his re-election campaign for City Council today. He is seeking his fourth term in November.

“While the past four years have been tough and grueling – largely due to the economy – my vision for our community remains strong and clear. I still have fire in my belly to work for and with the residents of Lynnwood,” Simmonds said.

“As we look to the future, it is imperative that we right size local government and stabilize the city’s revenue. This entails shifting limited resources to high priority or core services resulting in lower taxes in due time. For the foreseeable future, the focus would be on economic development, public safety and infrastructure needs,” he added.

Simmonds is facing two challengers, as we reported earlier this week. One of them is John Conley.

“I would like to see city government live within it means as taxes have ballooned, far outpacing individual income growth. If a tax increase is needed then it should be a closed end tax that has an expiry attached. Without this expiry it lulls the government into a sense of guaranteed income which promotes further overspending. I’m committed to a fiscal budget that contains rainy-day provisions,” Conley said.

The other challenger is Michael Moore, owner of A&M Striping. We’ll post comments from Moore when we receive them.