Candidate in '08 will run again in '10

• Tom Dippel

Tom Dippel, 27, finished fourth in a five-candidate field in the race for Cottage Grove City Council in 2008.

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An unsuccessful candidate for Cottage Grove City Council in 2008 announced Friday he would seek office again in 2010.

Tom Dippel finished fourth in a five-candidate field in the 2008 general election. But the 27-year-old dental lab technician and part owner of Mississippi Dental Lab said in an interview Friday he will enter the 2010 race for one of two council seats a more seasoned — and better — candidate.

In 2008, “I had a desire to run and to serve and to do what I thought was right, but I pretty much had no idea how to do that,” Dippel said. “I didn’t know how to run a campaign, I didn’t know the rules. I didn’t know any of that.”

Dippel said he has spent the intervening 16 months studying the city, learning the ins and outs of the city budget and observing a city council he says hasn’t acted aggressively enough in reacting to the country’s deep recession.

The staunch libertarian covered some familiar ground from his 2008 campaign in an interview Friday, saying Cottage Grove’s city leaders needed to take a hard look at more cuts to the city budget and more tax cuts for homeowners. It’s a fiscal stance that served as the centerpiece of his campaign in ’08, and one he said would be at the forefront this fall.

“We really need to take a good, hard look at what exactly are we funding here?” Dippel said.

This time around, though, Dippel said he will be better able to express his vision to the city’s voters — even if it isn’t always an easy message to deliver.

“It’ll be tough,” he said. “It’s always tough to not promise things to people and rather give them their money back.”

Dippel is the third candidate to announce an early entry into the race for city council. A pair of city advisory commission members, Tanweer Janjua and Angela Chambliss, have already said they will seek council seats currently held by Pat Rice and Mark Grossklaus in November.

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