Fuentes to announce candidacy today

Vanessa Fuentes has told the Austin Monitor she intends to announce her candidacy for the District 2 seat on City Council today. She also plans to file the necessary paperwork to show that she has designated attorney Bianca Garcia as her campaign treasurer. Fuentes said she had recently resigned her job as director of grassroots and digital organizing at the American Heart Association so she can focus on running for the seat being vacated by Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza. Garza announced back in November that she would not seek reelection this year because she might be focused on running for Travis County attorney. (She subsequently filed for and is pursuing that office.) Fuentes, who has served as president of the Young Women’s Alliance and as the District 2 representative on the city’s Tourism Commission, among other activities, will face David Chincanchan in the November election. Chincanchan was chief of staff for Council Member Pio Renteria before stepping down from that job in order to run for the Council seat. Fuentes bills herself as the daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a first-generation college graduate. In a prepared statement, she said, “I left my job to pursue this opportunity because it is clear to me that my community wants to see change at City Hall.”