With the withdrawal of a former candidate for the city’s fifth council seat, the only municipal primary Bothell voters will decide Aug. 18 involves council’s third seat, now held by incumbent Del Spivey.

Reportedly citing a lack of campaign funds, Adam Brauch pulled out of the race to unseat Position Five incumbent Patrick Ewing. Ewing still will face challenger Jennifer Armenta during the general election in the fall. In Bothell’s only primary, Spivey will be joined on the ballot by residents Gerry Gawne and Jeffery Bogdan.

“The biggest thing for me is the downtown plan,” said Spivey, who is finishing up his first term on council. “We’re laying down a base for it … I’d like to see some conclusion.”

Spivey said the downtown project will help assure Bothell’s future, but also said council has made plenty of adjustments in response to resident concerns.

For example, Spivey said legislators had removed provisions allowing 65-foot height limits on new construction neighboring existing residential neighborhoods.

Under rules passed July 15, in so-called transition zones, buildings abutting residential districts must rise no higher than 35 feet within so many feet of the property line, then gradually can reach the 65-foot level.

Among Spivey’s challengers, Bogdan was unable to be reached by phone and never fully responded to e-mail requests for information.

Downtown redevelopment is also much on the mind of Gawne, who repeatedly said he is a big supporter of the overall idea. But he also said he doesn’t want the development to mortgage Bothell’s future, arguing the price tag for the project just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

As an example of what he sees as overspending, Gawne pointed to the $400,000 he said the city paid for a small nail salon, taken over to make room the readjustment of the city’s two state routes. While he didn’t know if the price included relocation costs or other compensation for the former owner, Gawne said neither the property nor the building appeared to be worth what the city paid for it.

According to Gawne, City Council currently has a fundamental problem in that a block of members — including Spivey — vote in lockstep with each other and Mayor Mark Lamb.

“I think the heart of my complaint is the fact City Council was for years made up of independents … Now, for the first time in my memory, you’ve got this block voting,” he said.

Besides downtown-related issues, Gawne blasted council and Spivey in particular for voting themselves what he called a 250 percent pay raise in the form of a new health plan that covers not only legislators, but also members of their families.

For his part, Spivey said he refused to get into negative campaigning and mudslinging.

“I would rather not get into ‘he said, she said,’” Spivey added. “I just think it’s important to be about the issues and to be talking about the issues.”

For the future, still talking in terms of development, Spivey wants to push the idea of low impact, or green, construction methods in the city. He noted the current council already has adopted requirements that new municipal buildings be certified as meeting certain environmental standards. Spivey wants to go a lot further.

As an example, he said he would like to see more and more porous pavement in place in Bothell, including using such materials for sidewalks.

Porous pavement is thought to help reduce water runoff by allowing water to soak into the ground where it falls, reducing the amount of polluted runoff reaching local waterways. The pavement is also believed to be a means of reducing flooding.

In terms of other issues facing the city, Spivey said he was disappointed by the Snohomish County Boundary Review Board’s (BRB’s) rejection of Bothell’s attempt to annex areas to the north of the city. He said it’s unfortunate that the BRB didn’t take into account what he called Bothell’s “forward thinking” on the annexation area. Still, Spivey added that based on conversations with city staffers, he’s not sure an appeal of the BRB decision is the way for the city to proceed.

In terms of his campaign, Spivey said he plans a grassroots effort, going door to door.

“I want to talk about what is going on and where we are going,” Spivey said.

At 46, Spivey is a Bellevue firefighter. At 67, with a background in TV and radio production, Gawne operates his own company, Gawne Creative Media.