Three Kirkland City Council incumbents and two hopefuls are in the race so far to grab the three council seats up for election this fall.

All five candidates filed papers with the King County Elections office Monday, which marked the beginning of candidate filing for the 2011 primary and general elections.

The first to announce her bid for re-election, Kirkland City Councilwoman Jessica Greenway is running for a third term for Position 4. Former state Rep. Toby Nixon, who lives in the newly annexed neighborhood of Kingsgate, will challenge Greenway for the seat.

Councilman Bob Sternoff announced through other media outlets last month that he will run again for Position 2. Sternoff will face off against challenger Jason Gardiner, a Naval veteran and architect who also lives in Kingsgate.

Gardiner said he wants to bring a fresh perspective to the council.

“I want to represent the annexation area in the Kirkland City Council,” said Gardiner, who was against annexation because he was concerned the city “wasn’t ready for it … We’re doubling the size of the city, but we haven’t added any council seats, so this is an opportunity to get some representation.”

Gardiner added that he is running against Sternoff because “he and I are a lot alike. If there was somebody I was going to run against, I wanted to be able to not have animosity between the two of us. I’m not a muckraker; I don’t want to go out and start calling people names. I know Bob’s the same way.”

Gardiner said he expects to learn a lot from Sternoff as he runs his first campaign.

Sternoff declined to comment to the Reporter about his candidacy.

Councilman Dave Asher has not yet announced his candidacy, but did file papers Monday to run again for Position 6.

Candidate filing ends at 4:30 p.m. Friday, June 10.