Eric Bunch and Geoff Jolley are the preferred choices for KC Council 4th District

Voters in the Kansas City Council’s 4th District will find three excellent in-district candidates on Tuesday’s ballot: Eric Bunch, Geoff Jolley and Jared Campbell. All would bring energy and creativity to the City Council.

We recommend Bunch, who helps run a nonprofit group involved in transportation policy, and Jolley, a firefighter and former aide to U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.

Bunch is a co-founder of what is now called BikeWalkKC, a public interest group focused on street-level issues: sidewalks, bike paths, street crossings and the like. The organization’s work has helped make Kansas City more pedestrian-friendly, a key part of the recovery downtown during the past five years.

Bunch’s experience on these matters will be helpful in the years ahead. But he also has good ideas on housing, economic equity and improving community health.

Jolley would bring a similar focus to well-known community problems. He promises transparency and data-driven decision-making if elected to the City Council. Both are important commitments.

He is a firefighter. He has promised to leave that job, as required, if elected to the council. He could provide an important perspective as the city considers firefighter overtime costs and pension payments, two sticky issues on the near-term agenda.

We would expect Jolley to bring independent thought to those discussions.

Jared Campbell has a long record of community service and involvement. He is qualified for the 4th District seat. It’s a very close call, but we preferred his two opponents’ approaches to the long list of challenges in Kansas City.

The Star is partnering with the nonprofit Verify More on candidate background checks, and you can see the results of that screening process here.