Ballots have formed in Orange County city council races, and there are lots of interesting angles to note.
One is the lack of interest in running for local government in some corners of the county: Buena Park District 5 Councilman Connor Traut faces no challenger, and neither does Costa Mesa’s District 4 Councilman Manuel Chavez. Two incumbents in San Juan Capistrano are set to keep their seats with no one else filing for those races.
Stanton Mayor David John Shawver and District Councilman Gary Taylor face no challengers and only two are campaigning for the third open seat where there is no incumbent.
Also interesting is the amount of interest in some council races.
Irvine has six people running for two open council seats and five for its mayor seat; Cypress has six residents interested in three open seats on its council and Fountain Valley has 13 candidates for three open seats.
With no incumbents on the ballot in Huntington Beach, there is guaranteed to be a majority of new faces on that council. And 18 residents are campaigning for the four open seats on the seven-member board.
San Clemente also has both a lot of interest in its open seats – 12 are running for three open seats on the five-member council – but will also have at least two new faces with only one incumbent running.
There are guaranteed new faces on councils around the county, including Aliso Viejo, Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton and Seal Beach.
The Anaheim mayor will be new, though one council member is among those running for the seat, and at least two new council members will be decided in November.
Laguna Niguel has two seats with no incumbents running and interest from six candidates. Lake Forest District 2 is guaranteed a fresh face, but the other two district incumbents had no challengers.
Newport Beach has four of seven seats on the ballot in November, and just one incumbent running – for District 6. Orange is guaranteed a couple new faces. Santa Ana will have a new mayor
Seal Beach is guaranteed at least two new members on its five-seat council.
In Dana Point there is not competition in the three district races, but the council will still see two new faces because the only incumbent is Jamey Federico.
Westminster voters will be choosing a new mayor, but it might not be a new face to the dais; three council members are running for the seat: Tai Do, Kimberly Ho and Chi Charlie Nguyen. Two council districts are guaranteed a new face.
Here is who is running for city councils in Orange County:
Aliso Viejo
For two open seats: Payal Avellan, Tiffany Ackley (incumbent), Tara Ricksen, Arthur Osorio and Max Duncan
Anaheim
Mayor: Ashleigh Aitken, Lori Galloway, Dick Lopez and Trevor O’Neil
Council District 2: Carlos A. Leon and Gloria Sahagun Ma’ae (appointed incumbent)
Council District 3: Al Jabbar and Natalie Rubalcava
Council District 6: Hari Shankal Lal and Natalie Meeks
Brea
For three open seats: Andrew Herrera, Cecilia Hupp (incumbent), Rodney “Blair” Stewart, Steven C. Vargas (incumbent) and Kari Windes
Buena Park
District 1: Joyce Ahn, Kevin Rhee and John Siebert
District 2: Jose Trinidad Castaneda, Carlos Franco and Myoung Soo “Michale” Han
District 5: Connor Traut (incumbent)
Costa Mesa
Mayor: John Moorlach and John Stephens (appointed incumbent)
District 3: Andrea Marr (incumbent), Jorge Miron and John Thomas Patton
District 4: Manuel Chavez (incumbent)
Council District 5: Robert Dickson and Arlis Reynolds (incumbent)
Cypress
For three open seats: David Burke, Carrie Hayashida, Terry Miller, Scott Minikus (incumbent), Bonnie Peat, Helen Le and Rachel Strong
Dana Point
District 1: John Gabbard
District 2: Matthew Pagano
District 3: Jamey Federico (incumbent)
Fountain Valley
For three seats: Glenn Bleiweis, Cindy Cao, Kim Constantine (incumbent), Jim Cunneen, Shaun Diamond, Nancy Dugay, Patrick Harper, Rudy Huebner, Michael Mau, Darrell Mymon, Eugene Murray, Steve Nagel and Dwight Shackelford
Fullerton
District 3: Shana Charles, Arnel Dino and John Lewis Ybarra
District 5: Ahmad Zahra (incumbent), Oscar Valadez and Tony Castro
Garden Grove
District 1: George Brietigam (incumbent) and Allen Rodriguez
District 3: Asia Nguyen Cunningham, Laurie Merrick, Andrew Nguyen, Gia Le Nguyen, Don Taylor, Cindy Tran and James Webb
District 4: Joe Dovinh, Duy Nguyen and Trung Van Ta
Mayor: Steve Jones
Huntington Beach
For four seats: Bobby Britton, Brian Burley, Patrick Burns, Gina Clayton-Tarvin, David Clifford, Vera Fair, Jeffrey Hansler, Amory Hanson, Jill Hardy, Ken Inouye, Casey McKeon, William “Billy” O’Connell, Robert Reider, Oscar Rodriguez, Tony Strickland, Gabrielle Samiy, Gracy Van Der Mark and Mike Vogler
Irvine
Mayor: Tom Chomyn, Katherine Daigle, Farrah N. Khan (incumbent), Branda Lin and Simon Moon
For two open council seats: Larry Agran (incumbent), Scott Hansen, Anthony Kuo (incumbent), John Park, Navid Sadigh and Kathleen Treseder
La Habra
For two open four-year terms: C Michele Juarez Bernier, James “Jim” Gomez (incumbent), Jose Medrano (incumbent) and Susan M. Pritchard
For a two-year term: Guadalupe Lara and Daren Nigsarian (appointed incumbent)
La Palma
For two open seats: Janet Keo Conklin, Jonathan Dinwiddie and Nitesh P. Patel (incumbent)
Laguna Beach
For three open seats: Peter Blake (incumbent), Ruben Flores, Sue Kempf (incumbent), Mark Orgill, Jerome Pudwill, Alex Rounaghi and Louis Weil
Laguna Hills
For three open four-year terms: Erica Pezold (incumbent), Parshan Khosravi, Joshua Sweeney and David Wheeler (incumbent)
For a two-year term: Don Caskey (appointed incumbent)
Laguna Niguel
For two open seats: Melissa Caldwell, Ray Gennawey, Javed Mokhberry, Stephanie Oddo, Jeff von Waldburg and Stephanie Winstead
Laguna Woods
Two open seats: Annie McCary, Carol Moore (incumbent) and Edward H. Tao (incumbent)
Lake Forest
District 2: Bob Stuart, Benjamin Yu and Suzy Betz
District 3: Scott Voigts (incumbent)
District 4: Mark Tettemer (incumbent)
Los Alamitos
District 4: Shelley Hasselbrink (incumbent)
District 5: Randy W. Hill and Emily Hibard
Mission Viejo
District 1: Robert “Bob” Ruesch, Linda Shepard and Deborah Cunningham-Skurnik
District 2: Brian Goodell (incumbent) and Stacy Holmes
District 3: Greg Raths (incumbent), Ed Sachs (incumbent) and Cynthia Vasquez (because of new districts two current council members are now in the same race)
District 4: Terri Aprati and Trish Kelley (incumbent)
District 5: Wendy Bucknum (incumbent) and Jon Miller
Newport Beach
District 1: Tom Miller and Joe Stapleton
District 3: Jim Mosher, Amy Peters and Erik Weigand
District 4: Robyn Grant
District 6: Joy Brenner (incumbent) and Lauren Kleiman
Orange
Mayor: Mark Murphy (incumbent) and Dan Slater
District 1: Arianna Barrios (incumbent) and Jason White
District 3: John Russo and Kathy Tavoularis (appointed incumbent)
District 4: Denis Bilodeau, Christopher Horton and John Newman
District 6: Adrienne Gladson, John Gyllenhammer and Brian Harrington
Placentia
District 2: Mike Beshai and Kevin Kerwin
District 4: Chad Wanke (incumbent)
Rancho Santa Margarita
For three seats: Ken Dixon, Anne Figueroa (incumbent), Jerry Holloway (incumbent) and Brad J. McGirr (incumbent)
San Clemente
For three open seats: Victor Cabral, Mark Enmeier, Chanel Fetty, Shane Hirschman, Thor Johnson, Dennis Kamp, Steven “Steve” Knoblock (incumbent), Martina McBurney-Wheeler, Aaron Washington, Ashley Williams, Zhen Wu and Donna Vidrine
San Juan Capistrano
District 2: Troy Bourne (incumbent)
District 3: John Campbell, Paul Lopez and Cody Martin
District 4: John Taylor (incumbent)
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Santa Ana
Mayor: Valerie Amezcua, Jesse Nestor, Jose Solorio and Sal Tinajero
Ward 2: Nelida Mendoza (incumbent) and Benjamin Vazquez
Ward 4: Phil Bacerra (incumbent) and Amalia Mejia
Ward 6: Manny Escamilla and David Penaloza (incumbent)
Seal Beach
District 1: Gregg Barton, Joe Kalmick (incumbent) and Christopher DeSanto
District 3: Lisa Landau, Fred Macksoud and Stephanie Wade
District 5: Mariann Klinger, Michael McGrorty, Jonathan Rich and Nathan Steele
Stanton
Mayor: David John Shawver (incumbent)
District 1: Donald Torres and Elizabeth Wiktor
District 3: Gary Taylor (incumbent)
Tustin
Mayor: Austin Lumbard and Rebecca “Beckie” Gomez
District 3: Frank Gomez and Ray Schnell
Villa Park
For three open seats: Donna Buxton, MaryBeth Felcyn, Nicol Jones, Crystal K. Miles (incumbent) and Jordan Wu
Westminster
Mayor: Moses Castillo, Tai Do, Kimberly Ho and Chi Charlie Nguyen
District 1: John Gentile and Amy West
District 4: Namquan Nguyen, Teri Vu Nguyen and Jimmy Pham
Yorba Linda
For two open seats: Ryan Bent, Janice Lim and Carlos Rodriguez (incumbent)
Staff Writers Roxana Kopetman, Erika Ritchie, Alicia Robinson, Kaitlyn Schallhorn and Tess Sheets contributed to this report.
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