Stewart wanted to close the city's East Bay Golf Course on Sundays, too, but instead turned it over to a private management company. He also pushed for bans on alcohol and tobacco sales through convenience store drive-up windows.

Stewart said the controversy never bothered him. It didn't seem to hurt him with residents, either. He won election in 1993 with 62 percent of the vote. A local paper carried a poll at the end of his term in 1998 that showed 62 percent of the city supported his stand on Sunday observance.

Stewart's staunchest critic, former councilwoman Shari Holweg, expressed dismay Wednesday that Stewart may become an elected City Hall stalwart again.

"This is an attempt to get the independents off the council and run Provo by dictatorship once and for all," she said. "There will not be enough room to slide a piece of paper between Lewis Billings and George Stewart, and they will control the majority of the council, all of the department directors and the budget."

Stewart said Billings is a friend, but the two have differences, including the decision to close the pool on Sundays.

Stewart recently returned from an LDS Church mission. He and his wife served on a Navajo reservation in southern Utah for a year and then he was president of a mission in Argentina.

He already has spoken with several members of the council and has lunch meetings arranged with Steve Turley and Barbara Sandstrom.

Stewart said the only item in his platform so far is to continue efforts to strengthen the center of the city. Turley has questioned the methods of the council's quest to increase the number of owner-occupied homes in central Provo.

The decisions of Stewart, Bailey, Knecht and Richards come early in the election cycle. Candidates cannot file for races until July 15, and the deadline to file isn't until Aug. 15, city recorder LaNice Groesbeck said.

Primaries, necessary if three or more candidates file for a position, would be held Oct. 4. The general election will be Nov. 8.

Knecht decided to forego a shot at a second term after his teenage boys, ages 14 and 18, reminded him that if he won a second term, they would be gone when it ended.

"I haven't been on a family vacation in four years," Knecht said. "For the last 13 years I've given all my spare time to politics. It'll be nice to get back to being a family man."

Richards mourned the loss of Knecht.

"He is one of the most without-guile public servants I have ever known," she said. But Richards grappled with a similar decision.

"It's a sacrifice for your kids and your spouse," she said. "We talk a lot about it as a service we as a family want to give."

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com