Former county supervisor Dave Potter is running for Carmel mayor.

Dave Potter, a former Monterey County supervisor who lost in his bid for re-election in 2016, is getting back into politics. 

He's planning to run for Carmel mayor in November, challenging the incumbent, Mayor Steve Dallas, who has been beset by scandal in recent months. Dallas has faced allegations that range from making sexually inappropriate comments to women to threatening Carmel business owners to keep them from getting permits approved as a form of political retribution. 

While three members of City Council voted to exonerate Dallas, despite what attorneys described as boorish and unprofessional behavior, that very behavior has been part of an effort by many Carmel residents to get a candidate for mayor to step up and run. 

Potter says after he was approached by a number of business owners and residents, he agreed to put his hat in the ring. 

"I'd be honored to go ahead and give it a go," he says. "I cut my teeth in local government. I enjoyed my days with the city, frankly, more than I did at the Board [of Supervisors]. I think you can be more responsive to your constituents in city government than county government."

Before he was first elected as a county supervisor in 1996, Potter served as a member of the city of Monterey's Architectural Review Board for four years, then two years on the city Planning Commission, followed by four years on Monterey City Council. 

He says it's early to lay out specific platform issues, but mentions the budget and a strategic reserve as concerns. "Government is constantly being asked to do more with less, financially," he says. "That's the challenge right now."

Instead, Potter says his motivations for running are more broadly about governance than specifics:  "What I'd like to see is less divisiveness and more togetherness. The polarization we're seeing at the federal level is at the local level; let's not be disrespectful or discourteous."

Dallas says he plans to seek re-election.