Aberdeen City Council member Kathi Prieto has announced that she won’t seek re-election this year. Her council position for Ward 2 was up for election this fall.

Prieto has been a council member since January 2016, and said she wanted to inform the public of her intention to not run again so it might give others time to consider running themselves.

“I figured if people knew, maybe more people would go, ‘OK, maybe I do have interest in it,’ and they start showing up to learn how it works,” said Prieto, who noted she spent a year attending city council meetings before running for election.

Prieto, who also works as a financial service specialist for the state Department of Social and Health Services, said she always strove to not unfairly categorize people in the city who may be struggling for a variety of reasons.

“That’s why I’m always so defensive up here when they try to categorize everyone and segregate one little group,” Prieto said of those struggling in the city. “It’s not one little group, it’s a huge and broad one.”