BREMERTON — District 6 City Council candidate Richard Huddy wants to differentiate himself from incumbent Roy Runyon.

Where Runyon has a reputation for dissension, Huddy wants to be a “team player.”

“My motto is basically winning through collaboration,” Huddy said. “I really believe in collaborating with people to achieve results. I think teamwork will get us where we want to go.”

Huddy’s lived in Bremerton since 1999 when he and his wife, Sabrina, bought a fixer-upper on North Montgomery Avenue. He’s the former executive director of CAPRI Heart & Lung Institute.

His interest in running for City Council was first piqued last year when incumbent Roy Runyon was the only councilman not to sign a letter opposing a proposed casino on Callow Avenue.

“Mr. Runyon totally disappointed his constituents with respect to this,” Huddy said. “They told him that they were opposed to this in no uncertain terms and he told us in no uncertain terms that he wanted to keep an open mind on it.”

For his part, Runyon said he left his signature off the letter because he didn’t think the developer, Gold Mountain Capital, was given the same treatment as other potential developers.

“It’s not about the casino. It’s about letting the process play out,” Runyon said. “It’s unfair for the City Council to pick winners and losers.”

Huddy thinks a united City Council can speed Bremerton’s growth.

“If you ask me the No. 1 reason why I am running for City Council, it’s because I believe in the potential of Bremerton and I want to accelerate the revitalization of our city and I want to do that through a collaborative approach,” Huddy said.

He believes in representative government, which to him involves meeting constituents and learning their interests and voting accordingly — something Runyon failed to do in regard to the proposed casino, according to Huddy.

“I will tell you this: If the constituents in District 6 tell me they do not want a casino on Callow Avenue that is going to destroy our neighborhood … I’m not going to be the only member of the City Council who doesn’t sign the letter telling the developer that we do not want your development,” Huddy said.

Neighborhoods are a key component to Huddy’s campaign. He and his wife organized a neighborhood watch in the Rainier district that has had considerable success. Known as the Bremerton Rainier District, it works a little differently than most watches in the city, which assign a captain to who then reports to the city’s community resource specialist, Joe Sexton. Many watches means many captains, which means lots of voices in Sexton’s ear.

The Rainier District has several watch captains who report to Sabrina Huddy, who reports to Sexton.

“It’s had a marvelous effect. All you have to do is look at the crime map for Bremerton for the second quarter of this year,” Huddy said. “And what you’ll see is this great big donut hole where there’s nothing happening in the Bremerton Rainier District.”

Huddy’s also focused on economic development. He wants to fill the empty stores on Wheaton Way, Kitsap Way and Callow Avenue. He wants the city to shift from focusing on expenses and start focusing on revenue.

“The place is gonna blossom. It’s on the verge of blossoming right now,” Huddy said. “The opportunities here for the city of Bremerton are fantastic. We don’t have to grasp a lousy economic opportunities.”

Huddy’s lesser known, third opponent is Kim Faulkner — Runyon’s wife. Huddy thinks the fact that she’s running against her husband is pretty damning.

“If you just take it at face value, she has expressed no confidence in him,” Huddy said. “After all, she lives with the guy, and for her to express no confidence in him in such a public way I think is pretty damaging.”