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.

Fountain Valley’s districts 3 and 4 will have new representatives, though there is no challenger in the mayor’s race. 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 and Carlos Franco

District 5: Connor Traut (incumbent)

Costa Mesa

Mayor: John Moorlach and John Stephens (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 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 Erika 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 Josh 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)

Related Articles

What’s an incumbent? Redistricting renders some confusion

After Anaheim’s last mayor resigned, four say they’re the candidate to move city forward

Candidate filing extended in several local council, school board races

Inland candidate isn’t registered to vote in Assembly district he wants to represent

Westminster City Council greenlights sales tax renewal measure for November ballot hours before deadline

Santa Ana

Mayor: Valerie Amezcua, Mark Lopez, 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, Tim Hogan and Amy West

District 4: Namquan Nguyen, Teri Vu Nguyen, Van Nguyen and Jimmy Pham

Yorba Linda

For two open seats: Ryan Bent, Janice Lim and Carlos Rodriguez (incumbent)

Related Articles

What’s an incumbent? Redistricting renders some confusion

After Anaheim’s last mayor resigned, four say they’re the candidate to move city forward

Candidate filing extended in several local council, school board races

Inland candidate isn’t registered to vote in Assembly district he wants to represent

Westminster City Council greenlights sales tax renewal measure for November ballot hours before deadline