Three students will face off with three nonstudent residents and one another for the same seat on the Ames City Council this fall.

Nathan Johnston, ex officio student member of the council, Casey Harvey, GSB senator and Gregory Velasquez will each vie for the at-large seat of the council. The at-large seat has been left vacant by Judie Hoffman, who announced she would not run for another term.

Councilman Russ Cross said he is glad to see so many people running for the seat.

“I think it is good when there’s an election for any office where there is more than one candidate,” Cross said. “It creates a good opportunity for good, healthy discussion of the issue.”

Harvey, senior in finance, said he has thought about running for council for a long time and was approached by students and residents to do so in May.

When he originally considered running, Harvey said he thought Johnston was going to run for the fourth ward seat, not the at-large seat.

“I thought I would be the only one running, but I am still confident,” he said.

Due to the amount of students running, Johnston said he is not sure how any of the three students are going to get enough votes to win.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Johnston, junior in finance.

Cross said with so many running, the student candidates have a chance to rally the student population.

“Naturally you would think that students would draw from the same group, thus hurting their chances for winning,” Cross said.

However, since the students make up half the population of Ames, Cross said he does not think splitting the vote should be a huge problem.

“Point is, there’s plenty to share,” he said.

Velasquez, junior in elementary education, said students might be motivated to vote because they have three students to choose from.

“I am interested to see how it develops and if there is much or any enthusiasm with students,” Velasquez said. “We’re not really sure how students are going to react to this and we’re going to have to respond to how they react.”

Because of low voter turnout in the past, Velasquez said it won’t take many votes to win. “In the past there hasn’t been much of a vote to split.”

Johnston said he is worried students will vote for their friend or who they are in class with.

“This is about who’s had the most experience,” Johnston said. “I’ve worked the most with the City Council and city staff.”

He said the at-large seat needs to represent the population has a whole, not just the students.

“It’s a good thing to want to give students a voice but the position I’m running for is not just about students,” he said.

Velasquez said he wants to run to represent students.

“There are already ordinances that exist that basically target students,” he said. “My goal is to repeal these ordinances as well as block ordinances that may affect students negatively.”

Harvey said he also plans to look at past ordinances enacted by the city.

“Overoccupancy is an issue but you have to tackle other issues to get to it,” he said.

The education program about occupancy limits is a good step, Harvey said, but the city should have tried to educate Ames citizens before fining people.

“If [the city] wanted to educate, they should have done it before they started enforcing it,” he said. “To start issuing fines for something people didn’t have any idea of is a rude way to get attention.”

Cross said a student hasn’t run for council in several years.

“It will be quite interesting,” he said of the election.

Ames residents Monte Parrish, Mary Ann Lundy and Matthew Goodman will challenge them for the at-large seat.