The first College of William and Mary student elected to City Council is looking to serve a second term.
Councilman Scott Foster, elected in his senior year, announced Tuesday he has turned in all his paperwork to secure his place on the ballot for the May 6 election.
Both Foster and Councilman Douglas Pons finish up their first terms on the council this June. The new four-year term for the two seats begins July 1.
Pons is in the process of gathering the required 125 signatures for his petition, said Carol Pettyjohn, the assistant voter registrar. Pons and Foster are the only two people who have filed. The deadline to submit all required paperwork is March 4.
“I’ve really enjoyed the last four years,“ Foster said. “I got to work on a lot of cool stuff with some very smart and devoted folks. I thought I’d re-up for another four.”
Foster was the first W&M student to be elected to city council in the more than 300 years since the town and college have been established. Foster said while he has seen great improvement, the strengthening relationship between the college and city continues to be a goal for him in his next term.
“By most accounts, town-gown relations are better than they have ever been,” Foster said. “I’d like to maintain the positive environment we’ve created.”
Aside from continuing to improve the college-city partnership, Foster said he also aims to focus on downtown development projects, like the one happening along Prince George Street. He also said he would be keeping his eye on upcoming decisions pertaining to schools, like that of the placement of a fourth middle school.
Foster said he learned much during his first term, but above all else he learned a lesson in persistence.
“It is all about a continual conversation,” Foster said. “Unless you keep things on the burner, they tend to be forgotten about.”
Foster said he went into the job thinking he might just develop superficial, “dry-type” relationships with other council members, but that has not been the case. He said continually enjoys the company of the other council members.
Foster, who now attends the college’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law, graduates in May and plans on taking a job with Tarley Robinson, a law firm in New Town where he interned. He said another one of his long-term goals for the city would be to have other students decide to stick around after graduation.
He said often students graduate college and don’t see a reason or an opportunity to stay, and he thinks the city should work on correcting that. Foster said while several ideas have been thrown around, no concrete plan is yet in place.
“It’s something we definitely have to figure out,” Foster said.
This year’s election will take place May 6. Absentee voting starts March 21 and the last day to register to vote is April 14.
