By Megan Ma

Four candidates have applied for a seat on the Los Altos City Council, which was left vacant when Kurt Colehower announced his resignation earlier this month.

City Planning Commissioners Phoebe Bressack and Megan Satterlee, former Los Altos Mayor and Councilman Louis Becker, and newcomer to city government David Gustavson, a longtime Los Altos resident, are scheduled to be interviewed by city staff today.

A civil engineer by profession, Becker served on the council for eight years. Now retired, Becker said he has the time to serve on the council and emphasized his confidence in the current council.

“It’s a very good council for anyone to fit into. It’s a council where everyone respects each other’s opinion,” Becker said.

Becker’s civic experience includes serving as a board member at the Los Altos Village Association and as a committee member on local volunteer committee Keep Los Altos Schools Strong. He said he would promote a boutique hotel and increase parking and retail downtown.

A self-employed architect for 30 years, Bressack said she enjoys working for a city she loves.

“I really like my town. That was one of the original reasons I got involved,” Bressack said. She is a member of the downtown zoning committee, a group of civic and business leaders who discuss how to situate retail stores. She emphasized retaining the small-town feel of downtown and suggested creating more pedestrian-friendly routes. One of her goals in the next year is to replace the “aging infrastructure” and invigorate the commercial areas in the city.

Gustavson, a retired physicist who worked in research labs including the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, said he’s looking forward to “giving back to the community” he’s lived in for 39 years. He is a member of the city’s Community Emergency Response Team and lists emergency preparedness among his council priorities. Gustavson said staying within the city’s budget and “using resources efficiently” are his top priorities in the next year, should he be appointed. Although he has not served on an elected board in the city, he said he’s prepared for the job.

“My whole career has been a public service of some sort,” Gustavson said.

Satterlee, a business manager at Hewlett-Packard, lists an orderly development of residential and commercial buildings as one of her top goals in the next year. She is interested in looking into revenue growth opportunities.

A former Sunnyvale planning commissioner, Satterlee said she has a conservative budget policy and encouraged Los Altos leaders to work with neighboring cities “to ensure it has a voice in decisions which impact its budget,” she wrote in her application.

The four remaining city councilmembers will interview each applicant. A special meeting to interview the three finalists is scheduled Dec. 6. State law requires councils to appoint new members within 30 days of a resignation, making Dec. 8 the deadline for an appointment.

After a public hearing, city councilmembers Nov. 14 selected a special appointment process rather than pay for costly alternatives. Other options included a mail-in ballot or a special election administered by the county.

For more information, visit www.ci.los-altos.ca.us.