In the Nov. 3 election, residents living in the neighborhoods surrounding UCI, University Hills, and the Jamboree and MacArthur corridors will elect their very first City Council representative.

Two candidates are running for the new Council seat: Irvine's Sustainability Commissioner Scotty Hong and at-large Councilmember Kathleen Treseder.

While Treseder floods the district with costly mailers, Scotty Hong is taking a different approach: building a truly grassroots campaign powered by people living in the district.

Hong, a 34-year-old public policy expert educated at Harvard and Cornell, has already drawn scores of UCI students to his campaign. In fact, they've established a "Students for Scotty" group on campus.