Update, Feb. 18: This story was revised to reflect the final filings.

Twelve years after she left City Hall, former Mayor Laura Miller is back for a second act in Dallas politics.

Miller on Friday turned in paperwork — two hours before Friday's filing deadline — to run to represent council District 13, which includes Preston Hollow, parts of northwest Dallas and Vickery Meadow. She'll face three-term incumbent Jennifer Staubach Gates.

Miller's beef with Gates has centered primarily on the debate over zoning and development at Preston Center and the surrounding area.

1 / 6Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller speaks to reporters as she leaves the city secretary's office after filing the required petition signatures to secure a place on the ballot for Dallas City Council District 13 at City Hall. (Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer) 2 / 6Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller speaks to reporters as she leaves the city secretary's office after filing the required petition signatures to secure a place on the ballot for Dallas City Council District 13 at City Hall.(Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer) 3 / 6Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller speaks to reporters as she leaves the city secretary's office after filing the required petition signatures to secure a place on the ballot for Dallas City Council District 13 at City Hall.(Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer) 4 / 6Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller speaks to reporters as she leaves the city secretary's office after filing the required petition signatures to secure a place on the ballot for Dallas City Council District 13 at City Hall.(Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer) 5 / 6Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller leaves the city secretary's office after filing the required petition signatures to secure a place on the ballot for Dallas City Council District 13 at City Hall.(Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer) 6 / 6Miller was on hand for a panel discussion at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas last fall, along with former mayors Steve Bartlett (back to camera), Ron Kirk (speaking) and Tom Leppert and current Mayor Mike Rawlings (right).(2018 File Photo / Vernon Bryant)

At the city secretary's office Friday, Miller said the race is "a referendum on development in District 13 now and in the future.”

"The homeowners in our area are under siege by developers, who are fully supported by our councilwoman without regard to traffic, pedestrian and parking problems," Miller said. "And the homeowners need an advocate, and I'm happy to be their advocate."

Miller, who said Friday she felt "a little rusty" navigating City Hall, had tried to get someone to run before she came to a final decision to jump in herself.

She listed Doug Deason — a Dallas businessman, major GOP donor and prominent supporter of President Donald Trump — as her treasurer.

Her decision to run made her the fourth of five former council members to announce a bid to return to the horseshoe at 1500 Marilla St. But a Miller-Gates showdown figures to be the highest-profile campaign in an election year in which every council seat is contested, including a crowded field of mayoral candidates who boast both political connections and deep pockets.

Gates, who ran unopposed in 2015 and 2017, was considered a possible mayoral candidate before she announced in December that she'd decided to run for re-election.

"I've got a solid record of leading for basics like streets, infrastructure and police, and that's where I'm focused going forward," Gates said in a text message Friday.

"That's why I chose to run for re-election — to keep leading for these basics and to keep our neighborhoods strong. We're on the right path, and we need to stay the course."

Dallas City Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates listens during a Dallas City Council meeting at Park In the Woods Recreation Center in Dallas. (Shaban Athuman / Staff Photographer)

Gates declined to comment further.

Miller, a former journalist who worked for The Dallas Morning News in the 1980s, became mayor after four years on the council representing Oak Cliff and southwest Dallas.

Miller decided against a mayoral re-election bid in 2007, but she has maintained a presence in Dallas politics since then. Over the years, she has endorsed candidates and causes, such as City Hall's position on the Dallas Police and Fire Pension controversy.

Miller, a formidable and combative politician, said she has mellowed since her days as mayor. But she was a polarizing figure then. Her campaign is sure to evoke perceived successes and failures from her tenure on the council, such as a Wright Amendment compromise that boosted Dallas Love Field, the redevelopment of downtown, the failed effort to bring the Cowboys back to the city and her unsuccessful push for a strong-mayor form of government.

After D Magazine reported late Thursday that Miller had told a woman that she was planning to run for mayor, Dallas police and fire association leaders blasted her on Facebook — a vestige of their predecessors' battles with her in the 2000s.

But Gates has also drawn the ire of police retirees for her position on the pension. And she has been a target of self-styled progressives for years.

Both figure to bring heavy hitters into the race. In addition to likely police and fire support, Gates has had her share of big-name supporters. And Miller's news release announced support from former Republican state Sen. John Carona and former City Council members Mitchell Rasansky, Donna Blumer and Sid Stahl.

Here is a look at the other May races.

Mayor

Twelve candidates ultimately filed to run to succeed term-limited Mayor Mike Rawlings, but only nine qualified.

The nine who qualified were: Design District developer Mike Ablon; businessman Albert Black Jr.; nonprofit CEO Lynn McBee; former Clinton administration aide Regina Montoya; four-term council member Scott Griggs; state Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas; former Republican state Rep. Jason Villalba; Dallas ISD trustee Miguel Solis; and 2016 Socialist Workers Party presidential nominee Alyson Kennedy.

Three others — Miguel Patino, Heriberto Ortiz and Stephen S. Smith, the founder of an asset management firm — also filed before the deadline, but did not qualify for the ballot.

The race is the most crowded since the 2007 race to succeed Miller drew 11 candidates.

District 1

Chad West, Griggs' appointee to the City Plan Commission, filed in December to run for the open seat in the north Oak Cliff district. West, a lawyer and Army veteran, has Griggs' support.

Small business owner Sylvana Alonzo will bring political connections of her own. She is married to former state Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, whose sister is former Mayor Pro Tem Monica Alonzo.

Artist Giovanni Valderas — a former member of the city’s Cultural Arts Commission who garnered attention last year with his “sad house” piñatas — and animal-rights activist Jeremy Boss also filed to run.

District 2

Paul Freeman, who served on the board of Dallas County Schools — the bus agency felled by a sprawling corruption scandal — will run against three-term incumbent Adam Medrano in the district that includes downtown, the Cedars, Deep Ellum, Love Field and chunks of downtown, East Dallas and Oak Lawn.

Part of a storied Dallas political family, Medrano breezed to a third term against a little-known opponent in 2017. He currently serves as the city's deputy mayor pro tem.

Barbara Eastwood Coombs also filed Friday to run for the seat.

District 3

Incumbent Casey Thomas will run for a third-term representing the district in southwest Dallas. He'll have to fend off community organizer Davante Peters, Dallas County Community College District trustee Charletta Rogers Compton, Britannica Scott and Denise Benavides.

Thomas, whose colleagues elected him mayor pro tem after the resignation of Dwaine Caraway, beat top challenger Joe Tave in 2015 and 2017.

District 4

Carolyn King Arnold hasn't had much time to get comfortable at City Hall.

Arnold served one term representing Oak Cliff, but lost to Caraway in 2017. Then she won a special election in December to finish his term.

Now she'll have to run again against four candidates: Dawn Blair, Karon Flewellen, Keyaira Saunders and Asa Woodberry.

Saunders and Blair ran in the fall special election, with the former taking Arnold to the run-off. Saunders, an activist, garnered 1,075 votes to Arnold’s 1,543.

District 5

Council member Rickey Callahan decided last year not to seek a fourth term representing Pleasant Grove. Running for his position are Yolanda Williams, a Callahan appointee to the Park Board; former Dallas ISD trustee Jaime Resendez, who left the school board after a residency imbroglio; and Ruth Torres, who founded an academic intervention non-profit.

District 6

The West Dallas race will be something of a 2017 rematch. Monica Alonzo, who served three terms on the council, will vie again for the position.

Omar Narvaez, the former Dallas County Schools board member who defeated her in a runoff, will seek a second term. Tony Carrillo, who got 2.2 percent of the vote in 2017, will also run again.

District 7

The district — which covers South Dallas, Buckner Terrace, Far East Dallas and part of Pleasant Grove — will have more candidates than any non-mayoral race.

First-term incumbent Kevin Felder — who police are investigating in connection with an alleged scooter accident that he denies happened — will seek re-election. The candidate he defeated in 2017, one-term council member Tiffinni Young, will also try to retake the seat.

Adam Bazaldua, the fourth-place finisher in the crowded 2017 race, will run again. Also in the race are former City Council member Sandra Crenshaw, Yvette Gbalazeh, an activist known for her "Will Rap 4 Weed" signs, Buckner Terrace Homeowners Association chairman Korey Mack, who served on the City Plan Commission, Joseph G. Thomas, Calvin D. Johnson, and Sade' Eva Johnson.

District 8

In 2017, Tennell Atkins — who had served four terms on the council — defeated first-term incumbent Erik Wilson to reclaim the southeastern Dallas seat.

Wilson, who lost in a runoff by 56 votes, will try again to beat Atkins in a one-on-one May race.

District 9

Mark Clayton's decision to leave the council after two terms yielded a field of six candidates in the White Rock-area district.

Paula Blackmon, who was running Larry Casto's ill-fated run for City Council, will run for the seat. Blackmon formerly served as chief of staff for mayors Tom Leppert and Mike Rawlings and worked in the administration of former Dallas ISD Superintendent Mike Miles.

Paul Sims, who was District 14 council member Philip Kingston’s Park Board appointee, is also running. Sims is married to Kingston’s predecessor, former four-term council member Angela Hunt, now a prominent City Hall lobbyist.

Neighborhood activist Sarah Lamb, who led opposition to the state's plans to redo the Garland-Gaston-Grand intersection, also recently joined the race.

Also on the ballot: Erin Moore, executive assistant to Dallas County Commissioner Theresa Daniel; Jacinto Valdespino, a teacher at DISD’s Hector Garcia Middle School; and Tamara "Tami" Brown Rodriguez​.

District 10

Two-term incumbent Adam McGough had considered a mayoral run last year before deciding instead to seek re-election for his seat in northeast Dallas.

McGough didn't draw any opponents in 2017. This time, he'll face Keith Sirrano Baldeo and therapist D'Andrala “Dede” Alexander.

District 11

Council member Lee Kleinman will run for a fourth term against Curtis T. Harris, who narrowly lost a bid for a county constable position in November.

First-responders campaigned heavily against Kleinman in 2017, but the incumbent handily defeated Candy Evans, who runs a popular real-estate website.

District 12

Sandy Greyson, who left the council in 2005 because of term limits and returned in 2011, is term-limited again.

The open seat to represent Far North Dallas attracted three candidates: Cara Mendelsohn, Carolyn "Cookie" Peadon and Daniel L. Powell.

Peadon, who served six years on as Greyson’s appointee to the City Plan Commission, won the term-limited council member’s endorsement. But Mendelson, a North Dallas native has extensive civic experience, including the Dallas Commission on Homelessness. Powell, too, has also served on some city boards, including the 2017 Bond Program Critical Facilities Committee.

District 14

Philip Kingston, the incumbent, has two challengers in his bid for a third term: real estate businessman Warren Johnson and David Blewett, a mortgage banker who played football for Southern Methodist University.

Blewett sought to represent the district — which includes East Dallas, Uptown and parts of downtown and Oak Lawn — in 2013 when Hunt stepped aside because of term limits. He finished in fourth place with about 10 percent of the vote. Kingston eventually won that race in a runoff.

In 2017, Kingston fended off a challenge from lawyer Matt Wood, who was backed by a well-heeled political group called For Our Community.

City columnist Robert Wilonsky contributed to this report.