Former Austin City Council member Laura Morrison will challenge Mayor Steve Adler for the mayor’s seat in November, according to a press release sent out Monday morning. Morison, elected to City Council in 2008 and 2011 during the city’s at-large council system era, is so far the only challenger to Adler for the 2018 election. Austin City Council moved from electing at-large council members, or citywide, to a system in which council members are elected based on 10 geographically aligned districts. According to the press release, if elected, Morrison would be the first woman to serve as Austin’s mayor in 35 years. “I’m running for mayor to reset that path that Austin is on, so that our future enhances the quality of life for the people who live here, rather than diminishes it,” Morrison said in a statement. “I hear from anxious Austinites from every corner of town, from every income level, and across every walk of life. All of them are worried about Austin’s direction. It’s time for a leader whose priority is the people who live here now. It’s time Austin had a mayor for all of us.” Morrison said she intends to bring on BookPeople CEO Steve Bercu as her campaign treasurer and social advocate Ruby Roa as her campaign chair. Morrison has been a vocal opponent of the direction of CodeNEXT, the city’s ongoing rewrite of the land development code, supporting the preservation of neighborhood plans. As a council member, she played an involved role in the drafting and passage of Imagine Austin, the city’s 30-year comprehensive plan. According to the press release, Morrison is an active board member of both Housing Works Austin and Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, or ECHO; a member of the Austin Film Society’s Austin Public Community Media Advisory Committee and serves as Chair for Forklift Dancework’s “My Pool, My Park, My City” Advisory Committee. A formal campaign kickoff is scheduled for mid-February.