In January, there was speculation that Davis City Councilman Don Saylor would run for state Assembly to represent Yolo and Solano counties.

He put that rumor to rest in a letter to the editor, and on Friday night, he made his bid for re-election to the City Council official with a fund-raising party at Glacier Circle Senior Co-Housing in West Davis.

Guests included a veritable who's who of local elected officials: the entire Davis Board of Education, Davis Mayor Pro Tem Ruth Asmundson; former Davis City Councilman Ted Puntillo; West Sacramento Mayor Chris Cabaldon; Yolo County Supervisors Helen Thomson, Matt Rexroad and Mike McGowan; District Attorney Jeff Reisig; Public Defender Barry Melton; Public Guardian/

Administrator Cass Sylvia; and former Davis Mayors Maynard Skinner and Jerry Adler. They were joined by plenty of Davis advisory commissioners, committee members and residents.

Guests mingled; ate prosciutto, garlic and Tillamook cheese pizza squares cooked on site by Tracy Beckwith, one of the event hosts; and drank sodas and libations served by Davis firefighters.

"I should probably not say a word, this is such a great group of people," Saylor said, as he took up a microphone that moments before was used to broadcast the folk music of Kate Saylor on fiddle and Melton and Bill Scholer on guitars.

Saylor was similarly self-deprecating throughout his speech, joking about being long-winded and pledging to offer a recap on his Web site (www.donsaylor.org) to those who missed his speech.

"Let me just tell you, it will all be on the Web site, believe me," he said, waving a stack of index cards typed with his notes.

But Saylor also talked about what he would do with another four years on the City Council.

Efforts toward sustainability and a lighter environmental footprint are priorities, he said, as well as helping Yolo County "to struggle through their General Plan issues to preserve land."

However, Saylor said, sustainability cannot be accomplished by "saying no to every development opportunity."

"We need to look at miles driven, create jobs here and leverage smart, green development," he said. "We need to support police and fire, and we need to work really hard, guys, on sustaining the fabric of community."

By that, Saylor was referring to the tone of public discourse in Davis which has, at times, crept into the uncivil. He pointed guests to copies of an op-ed piece he wrote for The Davis Enterprise about community relations.

Although the City Council election isn't until June 2008, Saylor's campaign manager Alan Fernandes called Saylor's strategy "a marathon, not a sprint."

Saylor was elected to the Davis City Council in March 2004, after serving two terms on the Davis Joint Unified School District Board of Education.

In 2003, he retired from his career in California state service. During his 24 years with the state, he worked as a fiscal analyst for the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office, as a construction project director for the Department of Corrections and as an administrator for the California Youth Authority. He managed construction programs valued at $500 million and supervised staff groups of up to 300.

Saylor and his family - wife Julie, son Aaron and daughter Kate - moved to Davis in 1987.

Three council seats will be up for grabs next June, and current City Councilman Stephen Souza has also announced his intention to run for re-election. Mayor Sue Greenwald's term is also ending, though she has yet to make a definitive statement as to her intentions.