The mayor's race in Eagle Mountain was thrown wide open — again — when Mayor Don Richardson decided not to run. Richardson was appointed by the City Council in November to fill former mayor Brian Olsen's vacated seat. Olsen resigned in October after he was charged with seven felony counts of misuse of public funds.

Three candidates filed to run for the remaining two years of Olsen's term — Richard Culbertson, Wolfgang Franz and Heather Jackson, a current councilwoman.

Eleven residents filed for three four-year seats on the Eagle Mountain City Council, which has been plagued by disharmony for the past year as council members have launched personal and political attacks against each other.

Linn Strouse will run for re-election, but David Blackburn and Vincent Liddiard will not.

Most recently, Blackburn was under fire from fellow councilman David Lifferth for accepting a gift from a contractor for the city. Lifferth said Blackburn violated the city's conflict of interest ordinance, but a city investigation cleared Blackburn.

Another mayoral race in Mapleton includes some interesting twists.

Mayor Jim Brady, appointed to the position when Dean Allan resigned in July 2006, won't run for election. The position could stay in the family, because Brady's wife Laurel filed to run. "He just doesn't have the time," Laurel Brady said. "I want to see the things he got started get done."

She will face Stan Sorenson, who lost to Allan in 2005, and City Councilwoman Ann Tolley.

BYU students have run for election before.

Andersen was 21 when he won the Orem Council seat in 1997. He served as mayor pro tem for a few months in 1999 but didn't run for re-election.

BYU biology major Daniel Sperry lost a run in Orem in 2003, as did Utah Valley State College student Justin Thompson in 2001.

BYU students Noe Casalino and David Lawrence Tyler ran in Provo unsuccessfully in 1991. Jon Selden earned 2 percent of the vote as a Provo write-in candidate in 1999.

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Contributing: Amy Choate-Nielsen, Elizabeth Stuart

E-mail: twalch@desnews.com