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Tanya Park, the city councillor for London’s diverse and complex downtown ward, will announce a mayoral run Friday, sources tell The Free Press.

Park, a first-term councillor, is the first left-of-centre candidate to step into the political vacuum created last week when Mayor Matt Brown announced he wouldn’t seek re-election after a rocky term marked by some policy successes and personal controversies.

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Park, elected in 2014 at age 30, had said she wouldn’t seek re-election as a ward councillor. She recently fell short in a bid to get the provincial NDP nomination in London North Centre.

Her term on council has been something of a baptism of fire, with the downtown ward at the centre of the biggest project in London history, bus rapid transit. It’s also been the epicenter of the high-profile resistance to the project.

Park supports BRT, as did Brown. The only other two expected mayoral candidates, Paul Paolatto and Paul Cheng, are vocal opponents of the $500-million system, which would run high-frequency buses from downtown to London’s edges and help spark infill development instead of more sprawl.