This post was written by Hatchet staff writer Brianna Gurciullo.

The city’s longest-serving D.C. Council member told students Tuesday that he would run for mayor.

“The next time there is an opportunity to run for mayor, I will run,” Ward 2 D.C. Council member Jack Evans said. “It would be an extreme challenge to win, but not impossible.”

Evans, who spoke to members of the group DC Students Speak, lost a bid for mayor in 1998 to former mayor Anthony Williams.

The 58-year-old council member told about a dozen student activists and local residents in the United Church at 20th and G Streets that neighbors had complained to him throughout his tenure about GW’s construction plans but eventually, relations smoothed over. Evans’ jurisdiction includes the Foggy Bottom and West End neighborhoods.

“As I see Foggy Bottom and West End going forward, again, it’s becoming a much more viable neighborhood,” Evans said, who is running unopposed for a sixth term next month. “The two major universities in my ward, Georgetown and George Washington, have seen a dramatic change in their relationships between the neighbors and the universities, all for the better.”

Evans has represented Ward 2 since 1991 and chairs the council’s finance committee. He said he plans to focus on education, safety, health care, affordable housing and employment in his next term.

Katherine Rodriguez, president of the student group, called the event an opportunity for students to familiarize themselves with District policy-makers.

“I think that it’s important that students in the community know who they’re being represented by,” Rodriguez, a former Hatchet reporter, said.