Mayor Tom Odell announced Thursday he will run for a second four-year term on the Sammamish City Council in Position No. 7.

First elected to the council in November 2009, Odell has served the City of Sammamish as a councilmember,deputy mayor, and for the past 16 months, mayor.

Odell has acted the city as a director on the Eastside Fire and Rescue Board for three years. He has also been a member of the SAMMI Awards Foundation board for two years and has recently been asked to join the Lake Washington School Foundation Advisory Board.

Odell said he is proud of variety of achievements in his first term, including Sammamish moving forward with a Community Center, tripling the funding for street maintenance, laying the groundwork for a new town center and helping keep the city’s finances exceptionally strong all while not increasing property taxes the last four years.

A long-time sports fisherman and conservationist, Odell is also active in the effort to restore the Lake Sammamish Kokanee salmon.

Odell said his priorities remain the same in a second term.

“(I) will continue to listen to Sammamish residents, strongly advocate for things that will bring real quality of life improvements to our families and protect our finances, which maintain and improve community services and city infrastructure,” he said.

Odell has an MBA from the University of Minnesota. An 18-year veteran of the airline industry, he has extensiveexperience in airline route and hub development, aircraft evaluation, fleet and market planning and financialmanagement.

“My extensive international travels have given me a very unique perspective on what makes a great city and why Sammamish is such a wonderful place to live,” Odell said. “I am dedicated to keeping it that way while at the same time continuing to improve services and amenities for our residents.”

A resident since 1989, Odell and his wife Ruth live in the Heritage Hills neighborhood in the northern portion of the city. Ruth, a recently retired teacher with the Lake Washington School District, continues her passion for teaching as a private tutor.

Their two adult children are graduates of Eastlake High School and the University of Puget Sound. Daughter Annie is a personnel recruiter in Seattle while son David is a UW Medical School graduate and cardio-thoracic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh.