Steamboat Springs — Two of the potential candidates for City Council touted themselves as “voices for the working class” Tuesday as they pulled petition papers and started getting signatures.

Steve Ivancie and Matt Jacquart are on either side of a generational gap, but each talk about replacing City Councilman Jim Engelken, who announced he would not seek another term Monday, as a spokesman for working people.

Ivancie and Jacquart are both seeking the one at-large position on council, which asks for a two-year commitment to the council.

Kathi Meyer, the chair of the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission, also may run for the at-large spot, though she was not available to comment Tuesday. Her husband pulled papers for her from the city clerk’s office.

None of the candidates were ready to say definitively that they would be in the race, though they will take the next three weeks to mull the decision over and collect signatures. They will need 25 signatures to be able to run. The due date for petitions is Aug. 27.

City Council President Pro Tem Kathy Connell and Councilman Ken Brenner chose Tuesday to vie for District III and District II seats, respectively. Brenner had occupied the at-large spot for the past two years. The district seats come with four-year terms. No one had pulled papers for the District I seat currently held by City Council President Kevin Bennett as of 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Connell, a property manager with Colorado Resort Services, said she was excited to try for another term and expand on her role in the council over the past four years.

“The first four years I just started getting it,” Connell said. “It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort and reading. You just start feeling effective and it’s over.”

Ivancie, a 21-year Steamboat resident, said he wants to represent working families in Steamboat Springs. He works at Jake’s Drafting as a project manager and has presented projects before Planning Commission and the City Council in the past. Ivancie said he is concerned with issues of growth in the valley and said we need a local solution to the problem that has engulfed other Colorado cities.

“We’ve been growing haphazardly with no real thought about what it’s doing to the average family. We need to have growth on our own terms,” Ivancie said.

Ivancie said he wants to model himself after Engelken in terms of his positions on issues such as affordable housing and his mentality of protecting the average working citizen.

Jacquart, a 26-year-old production director radio announcer at KFMU, who is on the air from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekday mornings, said he also thinks Engelken stood out as an important advocate for working people.

Jacquart sees himself as a potential advocate for young working people who may be struggling just to live in Steamboat.

Jacquart, who is originally from the Roaring Fork Valley near Aspen, said he has seen the problems other mountain towns have gotten themselves into and that he can help Steamboat avoid them.