Diana Perez to vie for Vancouver City Council open seat

A second candidate has thrown her hat into the ring for Vancouver City Council, hoping to fill a seat left vacant by an incumbent not seeking reelection.

Diana Perez will run for Vancouver City Council Position 3, currently held by Mayor Pro Tem Linda Glover. Glover announced on her Facebook page Monday that she wouldn’t run again when her term ends in November; Perez announced her candidacy just a few hours later.

“I want to be part of leading this great city in a purposeful and meaningful way where everyone benefits and has opportunities to thrive through a shared vision that is powerful and inclusive,” Perez wrote on Facebook. “As a city councilmember, I will help lead the efforts to create the policies that deliver an equitable and sustainable recovery from the pandemic.”

Perez has sought a city council seat before. In 2019, she was narrowly edged out of a seven-person primary race for a vacant council seat, falling short of the votes to make it to the general election by just a few percentage points. That seat eventually went to Sarah Fox. Earlier that year, she’d also made it to the final round to fill a vacant seat through a council appointment process, though the group ultimately selected Erik Paulsen.

Since then, Perez has remained involved in city business, serving on the Community Task Force for Council Representation. The group was charged with coming up with strategies to make Vancouver’s government more diverse, a goal that Glover emphasized in her announcement Monday.

If elected, Perez would be the only person of color on an all-white city council.

She joins another candidate who had already launched a campaign for Glover’s seat last week. Glen Yung, a local business owner, neighborhood association chair and fellow member of the representation task force, is also running.