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The filing for City Council candidates closes Friday.

But the field already is big enough and intriguing enough to guarantee several primaries and at least as many spirited races.

Among the hopeful trends is that most candidates actually appear serious about running.

Few appear to have filed because the courthouse happened to be on the way to lunch.

Some who lost in 2007 never stopped running and chose to stay engaged in civic affairs on a variety of levels.

At the top of the ballot Mayor Yvonne Johnson faces a challenger in retiree Bill Knight, who ran unsuccessfully for an at-large seat in 2007.

Johnson, the one-term incumbent, remains the prohibitive favorite, but it’s always healthy to have a contested mayoral race.

And if the past is prologue, Knight, an accountant by trade, will mount a clean, hard race against her.

In District 1, six candidates had filed at press time, including incumbent T. Dianne Bellamy-Small and challenger Luther T. Falls, who lost to Bellamy-Small in the 2007 primary and the 2005 general election (by only 50 votes).

Also notable is the continuing trend of white candidates running in predominantly African American districts.

For instance, there are Charles Coffey and Ben Holder in District 1.

And 29-year-old Ryan Shell, in District 2, who believes race shouldn't matter.

"I'm just a guy out here trying to help people," Shell, a Southside resident, said today. "It's as simple as that."

"People just want to be represented."

Shell said people his age especially want to put race behind them. "It's really important to me that we move forward. Maybe I'm just a different generation. White, black, rich, poor ... people just want to be people."

But a former candidate, David Hoggard, who lives in District 2, ran at-large rather than within the district because Hoggard, who is white, felt District 2 should be represented by an African American.

He said so then and he still believes that now.

“I still think those districts (1 and 2) were set up to be predominantly black districts,” Hoggard said Wednesday, “and that will bear out in the election.”

But isn’t possible for a white candidate to be the better candidate, even in a majority-black district?

And isn’t it time, in the year 2009, for the best candidate to win, regardless of race?

Conversely, shouldn’t a black candidate be able to get elected in a majority-white district? But few even choose to run in those districts, much less win.

“It’s a high, high mountain to climb,” Hoggard said.

“We have a black mayor and a black president, but I still don’t think people can get past race.”

If not now, as they say, then when?