John Ziesenhenne, who served on Richmond’s city council from 1982 to 1993, has filed paperwork with the City Clerk’s office announcing his candidacy for mayor in November’s general election.

Ziesenhenne, the CEO of M.A. Hays insurance company, is currently the only person who has officially filed for either the mayoral or city council races. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin has already stated she plans to seek re-election, and many City Hall insiders have speculated that other members of the council may take aim at the city’s top post, as well.

The former councilman said he plans to campaign on the need for jobs in Richmond, and will work toward lowering the city’s crime rate. Further, Ziesenhenne said, as mayor he hopes to improve what he sees as poor etiquette from the office.

“I haven’t seen Richmond at a lower point in regards to the lack of leadership from the mayor’s office,” Ziesenhenne said Tuesday from his Broadway office. “With the lack of communication, the lack of teamwork, the lack of respect, and the lack of civility that’s going on, bringing respectfulness back to City Hall is greatly needed.”

Ziesenhenne said he favors plans to build a hotel and casino development at Point Molate because of the number of jobs it would create, although he said he’ll keep an open mind about the proposal until after the November elections, when city residents will vote on an advisory ballot measure asking whether they support the plan. Current plans for Point Molate include building a 4,000-slot Indian casino, to be run by the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians.

“Richmond needs to do a much better job of getting people back to work,” Ziesenhenne said. “Having an 18 percent unemployment rate, we need to work diligently to bring good jobs into the city, to bring environmentally friendly jobs into the city, and to put people back to work.”

Ziesenhenne, 53, a North and East resident and Richmond native, graduated from Harry Ells High School and Contra Costa College before getting a degree in U.S. History from UC Berkeley in 1980. After spending over a decade on the city council, he returned to work for M.A. Hays Co., a property and casualty insurance broker, eventually working his way up to CEO.

“I think not being in the political mix [lately] gives me a fresh view of the city compared to some people on the council, and having a fresh voice and fresh leadership is something Richmond needs right now,” he said.

Despite the lack of names officially entered into the races, the field for both city council and mayor appear to be taking shape. Incumbent Mayor McLaughlin, and city council candidates Jovanka Beckles and Rhonda Harris have already begun walking precincts to raise awareness for their campaigns, and several other candidates for council have constructed campaign websites and are beginning to fundraise as well.

Councilmembers Maria Viramontes, Ludmyrna Lopez, and Jim Rogers are all up for re-election. The election will be held Nov. 2.

Candidates for mayor, and for open city council seats, have until Aug. 6 to declare their intention to run. Candidates must provide at least 20 signatures showing support from city residents, and prove they live in Richmond and are registered voters. City Clerk Diane Holmes said Monday that while she generally encourages candidates not to wait until the last minute to file their paperwork, it’s not uncommon for candidates to hold out a few weeks. The filing period opened July 12.

“I anticipate candidates to start filing this week and next,” Holmes said. “They’re probably out gathering signatures right now.”

In addition to Beckles, a member of the city’s planning commission, and Harris, who is the CEO of real estate firm R.F. and Associates, another likely City Council candidate is Eduardo Martinez, a retired schoolteacher who is being endorsed by the Richmond Progressive Alliance. Former Councilmen Gary Bell and John Marquez have also informally announced their candidacies for the council, as has former council candidate Corky Booze. Virgina Finlay, the president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, has also said she plans to run for council.

Lesser-known candidates are also likely to join the fray: Rodney Alamo Brown has created a Facebook page announcing his candidacy for mayor, as has Ervin Roquemore, who says he’s running for city council, although both appear to be relative newcomers to the political scene.

Ziesenhenne had said as recently as June that he wasn’t planning a mayoral bid. There is considerable buzz among City Hall insiders that Ziesenhenne won’t be the only challenger to McLaughlin, who narrowly beat out Gary Bell and then-incumbent mayor Irma Anderson in 2006. Councilman Nat Bates, who served two terms as mayor during the 1970s, has thus far denied a 2010 mayoral bid of his own. But his name continues to surface in rumors, and he reportedly sent a survey to supporters earlier this year to gauge interest levels in his candidacy.

Councilwoman Viramontes has also been rumored to have mayoral ambitions. Both Viramontes and Bates are seen as business-friendly and favor plans to build the large Indian casino at Point Molate — a plan McLaughlin, a Green Party member, opposes. Both Viramontes and Bates are vocal foes of the mayor, and often clash with McLaughlin during council meetings.

Should Bates and Ziesenhenne both run, they may end up jockeying for some of the same endorsements: Both men are members of the Black Men and Women Political Action Committee, and Ziesenhenne, who is white, has donated in the past to the Black-American PAC, which has traditionally supported and helped finance Bates’ re-election campaigns.

“It’s certainly an issue that’s out there,” Ziesenhenne said of potentially running against Bates, whom he described as a friend. (The two served briefly on the city council together during the 1980s). “But hopefully I’d be more convincing to constituents, whatever candidates are running,” he continued. “I have to believe that. Otherwise wouldn’t have filed papers.”

Before Tony Thurmond was appointed to the Richmond City Council in 2004, he was a political newbie. He’d done work in the non-profit world, and on the county commission on child-abuse prevention, but that’s not why he thinks then-mayor Irma Anderson tapped him to fill the last two years of Mindell Penn’s council term after he retired.

It was because he hadn’t made any enemies yet.

“In my case, [getting appointed to city council] didn’t have anything to do with what I’d done,” said Thurmond, who now serves on the West Contra Costa County school board. “In fact being new to the scene helped me, I think, because I didn’t have much history with anybody.”

The process of appointing a replacement to city council is fraught with insider politics, since any newcomer must be ratified by a majority of the sitting council – meaning a nominee has to be neutral enough to be accepted by all the factions of the body. It’s a head-scratching, curious and at times highly emotional affair – one in which inexperience can count as a plus, political loyalty is tested, and cronyism can run rampant.

And it could happen again this year.

With many City Hall insiders predicting that Councilman Nat Bates will run for mayor against incumbent Gayle McLaughlin this fall, the possibility emerges that, should he run and ultimately win, Bates’ council seat would be vacated, and the newly elected council would have to find a replacement right away. If he runs for mayor and loses, Bates could still return to fulfill his term on the council, which has two years remaining.

While appointing a new council member without any voter input hasn’t always been a popular move, it isn’t terribly uncommon. As recently as 2006, McLaughlin appointed Harpreet Sandhu to fulfill her term on the council once she’d been elected mayor.

There seems not to be any formula to choosing a council replacement; replacements have come from backgrounds in non-profit work, education, and even the business world. According to some former council members, extra consideration is often given to the next-highest vote-getter in the general election, although even that seems to have little bearing on the council’s selections in recent years. (Neither Sandhu nor Thurmond – the last two appointees – finished as runners-up in a November election).

“I suspect that the council members look at what a [nominee] has done in their community,” Thurmond said. “Do they have the experience for this hard job? Do they have experience in fiscal management? Are they familiar with the issues? And realistically, they also want to think about their relationship with them. That’ll all factor into the conversation.”

John Ziesenhenne, a former councilman (1981-1993) whose name has been floated as a potential mayoral candidate, remembered that when Richard Griffin, a school teacher and member of the Laurel Park Neighborhood Council, was appointed to a council position in 1981, it owed as much to his personality as his politics. “We went through a lot of people before we found someone the majority of council could vote for,” Ziesenhenne said. “Rich had a very respectful personality – a very caring personality. That’s why he kept getting re-elected.”

Gary Bell, another former councilman — who has declared he is running for election again this year — served on the council in 2001 when the Rev. Charles Belcher was appointed to fill the remainder of Alex Evans’ term after Evans resigned. Belcher, who was the pastor of the Resurrection African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Richmond at the time, was unanimously voted in by the council, despite having little background in politics. “He sort of came out of the blue,” Bell said of Belcher’s nomination.

This year, however, Bell figures there won’t be any such surprises. With a full slate of council candidates already declared for the race, he says finding an extra hand, if one ends up being needed, won’t be hard to do. “It’ll be a pretty crowded field this year,” Bell said. “They’ll have a lot of people who will have demonstrated that they’re interested in the job. I certainly hope it’s not going to be the kind of politics where they’d pick somebody out of the shadows.”

But handicapping such a scenario takes on added difficulty this year because it involves predicting how a number of moving parts may ultimately interact. With only council members Bates, Tom Butt and Jeff Ritterman locked into their seats, it’s hard to say what ideological faction will control the council’s majority after November.

“All these people [running for council seats] will have supporters on the council,” Bell said. “If Bates is able to win and becomes mayor, more than likely, it’ll come down to who’s still on the council? A lot of different scenarios could play out.”

With that said, here are some names being floated by City Hall insiders as replacements the council might consider:

Jovanka Beckles – Beckles, who lost out on a council seat in 2008 by about 400 votes, will try again this year, and has an impressive list of credentials: She’s the president of the Richmond Heights neighborhood council, and serves on both the city’s planning and economic development commissions. One question is whether her strong environmental creds may tip her hand in the Point Molate casino plan – one that has divided the council and will likely be a major factor in any nomination.

Gary Bell – Ran unsuccessfully for a mayoral bid in 2006 after five years on City Council. Bell, who has announced his candidacy for city council this year, has a background in banking, and currently works as the chief executive of a financial collective, Co-Op Credit Union, in Berkeley. His ’06 platform centered on creating and retaining business in Richmond – a theme that should play well in 2010 – as well as fighting crime and blight.

Virginia Finlay – Finlay, who has declared her candidacy for City Council, works as a real estate agent for Signature Realty Services in Richmond, and has served on the city’s Planning Commission for 16 years. She is also on the board of directors for the city’s Chamber of Commerce.

Rhonda Harris – Harris, a well-known local businesswoman, is the CEO of R.F. and Associates, a property-development firm in Richmond. She also helped found the Richmond Community-Based Employment Collaborative, and is involved with the city’s neighborhood coordinating council and the local NAACP.

John Marquez – Former council member couldn’t quite win his seat back in 2008, and has some baggage with the council: In early 2009, Marquez complained to the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission about a campaign mailer sent out by Councilman Jim Rogers in support of Jovanka Beckles, claiming Rogers had illegally set up an independent expenditure committee on her behalf. Depending on who ultimately wins council seats this year, that history could either help or hurt Marquez.

John Ziesenhenne – Rumors swirled about earlier in the year that Ziesenhenne, a former council member and CEO of M.A. Hays Insurance Company in Richmond, was considering a mayoral run of his own this fall. For now, he says he’s staying put in the business world, but Ziesenhenne, who has been active in a number of arts programs in Richmond throughout the years, could remain an attractive candidate to return to the council.

It remains to be seen whether the uncertainty surrounding the mayor’s race will have much affect on how council candidates run their campaigns – after all, a candidate who has spent weeks attacking the council could well find themselves in front of the same people, needing their vote of support.

Of course, making political about-faces is nothing new to the Richmond City Council.

“Richmond has a strange set of politics. There’ve been all kinds of scenarios where people who were once allies become rivals, and rivals become allies,” Bell said, evoking the warring political camps of Bates and Councilman Butt. “I mean, Nat and Tom sometimes agree on stuff.”

Will he or won’t he?

Councilman Nat Bates is enjoying arguably more public attention by remaining coy about his political future than he would reap from an outright announcement.

While the uncertainty hangs over the city’s always intriguing political landscape, many observers seem casually confident that the city’s most seasoned politico – Bates has held various reins of local power since the 1960s – is positioning himself for another run at the top spot.

“Everybody is expecting Nat Bates to run for mayor,” Councilman Tom Butt said.

So, will the 78-year-old Bates challenge his political bete noire, incumbent Mayor Gayle McLaughlin – with whom he routinely clashes on development issues - in this year’s November election?

Maybe. Maybe not.

“Well, all that talk about me running for mayor, that is just speculating,” Bates said during a telephone interview Monday. “I haven’t ruled anything out. You see, you have to get close to the starting line before you make a decision about your candidacy.”

Bates has made three previous runs for mayor, all unsuccessful. His most recent attempt was in 2001, a year, like 2010, when he could run for mayor without jeopardizing his seat on the council. But despite the near-misses, he is still more political power-player than perpetual also-ran. Bates has outlasted all his contemporaries – friend and foe - with whom he shared power in the 1960s and 1970s, and has been at the forefront of countless milestones in city history.

But he is no relic. If he does run, the city’s ultimate political survivor – one longtime observer called Bates a “master operator” – could mount a formidable campaign. If he were to win, it would also open his council seat to a field of candidates, potentially triggering a political re-alignment of the council.

The most recent campaign finance documents – for the period ending Jan. 1, 2010, show Bates with more than $10,000 on hand.

McLAughlin, who has continued her pledge to accept no money from corporations, reported less than $1,000.

Bates doesn’t have that problem. Chevron Corp., the development corporations seeking to build a casino at Point Molate and several political action committees have all contributed to the councilman in the past.

While McLaughlin is America’s only Green Party mayor in a city of more than 100,000, Bates enjoys a decidedly pro-business reputation.

“I am able to help unify and advance the business community,” Bates said. “The mayor won’t even accept a check on behalf of the city from Chevron because she hates Chevron.”

McLaughlin disagrees. In an interview earlier this month, she touted her tough stance toward Chevron as good for the health of residents and for business in the city, as evidenced by a recent deal struck between the city and the global energy giant that guarantees the city $114 million over the next 15 years.

If Bates does run, he’ll have to formally file papers with the city clerk between July 12 and early August.

“You see that the cream comes to the top,” Bates said. “Come July, you are going to have a surfacing of candidates, whoever they may be, who will run. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more than one (challenger).”

So who else could join the fray?

One prospect is John Ziesenhenne, a former councilman whose name has been bandied about by City Hall observers. He has downplayed the rumors, but stopped short of a definitive answer.

“I’ve been out of politics since 1993 and I have a pretty full agenda. So right now, today, no, I’m not running,” Zisenhenne said.

Then there’s the most enigmatic potential candidate of all: Rodney Alamo Brown. He has a Facebook page touting his run for mayor as a pro-business candidate who is very critical of McLaughlin.

Beyond that, he is something of a mystery – officials in the City Clerk’s Office said Monday that no candidate other than McLaughlin has filed papers.

“No one’s seen him, no one’s heard from him,” said Jovanka Beckles, a City Council candidate. “I’ve never seen him anywhere.”

Should Bates run, he’ll have a mix of strengths and liabilities. He enjoys strong name-recognition, good rapport with the city’s sizable community of working-class African Americans, and a campaign chest flush with the support of corporations and local businesses.

“Nat has excellent qualifications and name recognition, so he would be a strong candidate,” said Lloyd Madden, president of the Black American Political Action Committee, which has supported Bates in past elections. “Whether he could win would depend on whether he can rally a cross section of support.”

Corky Booze, City Council candidate and one-time ally of Bates who now supports McLaughlin, predicted that Bates’ last hurrah will be a bitter defeat.

“Nat Bates is going to run and raise more money than anybody, and then he’ll have money left over for his next (council) campaign,” Booze said. “But I don’t think anybody can beat (McLaughlin).”

McLaughlin’s national status as a Green Party mayor has already drawn national figures like former Obama Administration official Anthony “Van” Jones and immigration activist Nativo Lopez to Richmond to stump on her behalf. Her partnership with the local Richmond Progressive Alliance should help her secure hundreds of door-to-door volunteers, a strong ground game that some say was the nudge that got her over-the-top in 2006.

But there is also quiet unease among McLaughlin’s supporters. In a city where the unemployment rate still hovers near 20 percent and new jobs are few and far between, the mayor’s battles with Chevron and opposition to a casino development at Point Molate are political tightropes. In 2006, McLaughlin upset incumbent Mayor Irma Anderson by a razor-thin margin, thanks in part to local banker Gary Bell, a Democrat who siphoned off many votes that would have likely gone to Anderson.

If he runs, Bates will have to contend with opponents’ characterizations of him as a tool of big business and as an aging, unsavory and ethically-challenged member of the old guard.

Bates, who turns 79 in September, was fined by the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission in 2005 for receiving unlawful contributions from Black Men and Women of Richmond, a local political action committee.

Some observers think his long history will hinder him in a race for mayor.

“He will never be mayor of this town,” said Rev. Kenneth Davis, a longtime resident and activist from North Richmond. “He will run, but this community has seen for too many years that he is only a friend to himself and Chevron, not to our communities.”

Madden disagrees.

“Bates’ long record of being good to business could strengthen his chances,” Madden said.

Bates may not be ready to declare a run, but he has no qualms about declaring McLaughlin a failed mayor.

“She is a total failure from my perspective,” Bates said. “She has failed to lead, failed to solidify the community, failed to unify the business community. She doesn’t understand her role as mayor.”

Ian A. Stewart contributed to this report.

Since early 2007, Richmond has held the distinction of being the largest United States city with an elected mayor identified as a member of the Green Party.

Whether that is still the case after November, when Mayor Gayle McLaughlin faces re-election, remains to be seen.

About 10 months out from the Nov. 2 election, the only thing that seems clear is that McLaughlin will run for re-election, but she’s leaving it at that for the time being.

“Right now I’m very focused on moving forward ongoing issues and policies in my day-to-day work as mayor,” McLaughlin wrote in an e-mail response to inquiries about the coming election.

Mayor McLaughlin, right, and Vice Mayor Maria Viramontes in November.

McLaughlin indicated in the same e-mail that an official announcement that she will seek re-election is coming sometime in the next few months.

As for who will challenge her, no one has officially declared. Rumors are rampant, however, about two current City Council members.

Nat Bates, the city’s most experienced politician and one with long-cultivated constituencies, has been privately talking with close friends and aides about making a run, according to sources who declined to speak on record. Speculation is also swirling about Vice Mayor Maria Viramontes, McLaughlin’s consistent political foe and a politician whose blunt personal style and work, particularly on children’s issues and in support of the city’s growing Latino community, could translate into a formidable candidacy.

Bates, who was reached by telephone while in Southern California last week, acknowledged the possibility that he could run for the office he held during two separate stints in the 1970s.

“It is too early to make a decision with respect to the upcoming election,” Bates said. “At this point, I’m undecided.”

Bates, who was first elected to the public office when Richmond voters sat him on the City Council in 1967, has developed strengths and liabilities over a career that has made him the longest-serving councilmember in the city’s history.

Bates supports an investment in facility upgrades at the local Chevron refinery, which McLaughlin opposed and is currently winding through court. He has also called for tougher policing strategies, such as sobriety checkpoints, a measure which has unsettled many city residents, particularly immigrant communities. Bates has also had rubs with election law. In 2005, he paid fines to the state Fair Political Practices Commission for failing to disclose contributions to his campaign.

Bates supports the Point Molate Casino project, as does Viramontes.

On Jan. 11, the City Council voted 4-3 to extend a developer’s deadline to produced a plan to develop an Indian gaming casino on the former Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot. Bates and Viramontes headed the narrow majority, with McLaughlin on the other side.

Bates, center, was first elected to Richmond City Council in 1967.

With three City Council seats also up for grabs in what are expected to be competitive races, some city leaders are reluctant to cast their lot in a particular direction at this early juncture.

Councilman Jim Rogers, who faces his own re-election battle this November, acknowledged that he and McLaughlin have frequently seen eye-to-eye, but declined to weigh in on the race.

“The mayor and I, we have our similarities, particularly on the issues involving Chevron and our schools … certainly overall more similarities than differences,” Rogers said. “But I’m not going to endorse, I have my own plate full.”

Viramontes, who did not return calls seeking comment, has strong support among the city’s Latino residents and has sat on the council since 2002. A fourth generation Richmond native, Viramontes frequently clashes with McLaughlin on the dais, leading some to believe the two harbor personal animus toward each other. She is seen by many as pro-business and pro-casino, a diametrically opposite foil to McLaughlin, who never wavers from her green credentials and uses phrases like “social justice” as often as a street-level activist.

But Viramontes also touts youth-related issues and community policing along with her pro-business stances.

McLaughlin, who came to the city from Chicago earlier in 2000, relied on significant support from both black and Latino communities in 2006, when she narrowly defeated the incumbent, Irma Anderson, by barely 300 votes.

Councilman Tom Butt said he’ll “probably” support McLaughlin for re-election.

“She thinks close to the way I do on most subjects,” Butt said. Both have been critical of Chevron Corp.

Viramontes and McLaughlin have been known to have sharp exchanges during public meetings.

But they have differences as well. McLaughlin voted against a $350,000 pool divider for the Plunge in Point Richmond, a project Butt adamantly supported.

Butt has written in his own e-newsletter about how Bates would complicate the race, possibly siphoning off sizable numbers of both McLaughlin and Viramontes’ supporters.

However, McLaughlin has generally performed consistent with the expectations that preceded her term. She has vociferously battled with Chevron Corp. over taxes, fees and pollution. She is also among the most well-traveled elected officials in the city, often being sighted at multiple community events in a given day, giving crowd-pleasing speeches at events ranging from homicide memorials to a small gathering last week protesting the possible closure of a local post office.

“Word on the street is that she maintains an electable popularity that may have even expanded since her razor-thin win” in 2006, Butt wrote on Jan. 10.