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City of Alhambra · Statewide General Election

Alhambra City Council, District 1

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.

On the ballot

This person holds your district's seat on Alhambra's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use.

Amy J. Wong and Ron Sahu are running for the open District 1 seat after three-term incumbent Katherine Lee did not file for re-election by the August 6, 2026 deadline. Sahu had briefly withdrawn his own candidacy when Lee appeared to be seeking another term, then re-entered once she dropped out.

This person holds one of five district seats on Alhambra's City Council: city ordinances, the budget, land-use and development approvals, and the city's contracts. Members serve four-year terms and choose one of their own as a rotating mayor.

Neither candidate has held elected office, so the choice turns on which local record and priorities a voter trusts for an open seat: Wong's public-health career and Planning Commission service, against Sahu's engineering background and years of hands-on neighborhood advocacy through Grassroots Alhambra.

Amy J. Wong

This person is a public health adviser at the South Coast Air Quality Management District and a first-generation American who has served five years on Alhambra's Planning Commission. She is running on neighborhood safety, affordable housing, small businesses, parks and mobility, environmental sustainability, and giving residents more say in City Hall decisions. She led the campaign behind Monterey Park's data-center ban, described as the first voter-approved ban of its kind in the country, and has since brought that fight to Alhambra.

Strengths

A five-year Planning Commission record plus a citywide organizing win — Monterey Park's data-center ban, reported as the first voter-approved one in the country.

Trade-offs

No experience in elected office; her record is commission service and outside advocacy, not votes cast as a sitting councilmember.

Keep in mind

She and her husband are more recent Alhambra residents than her opponent — weigh her decade of San Gabriel Valley civic work against a shorter residency in the district she'd represent.

Ron Sahu

This person is an environmental and energy engineering consultant with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering, including graduate work at Caltech, who has lived in Alhambra since 1988 and served on its Planning Commission and Environmental Sustainability Commission. He is running on city finances and fees, government transparency and accountability, land-use planning, housing, and transportation. He is active in Grassroots Alhambra, the group behind the city's district-based elections and campaign-contribution-limit ballot measure, and has organized against development at Story Park and delays on contaminated land near Fremont Avenue.

Strengths

Nearly four decades in Alhambra plus two city commissions and a documented record fighting specific local fights — Story Park development, contaminated land near Fremont Avenue, Measure R spending.

Trade-offs

No experience in elected office; his record, like Wong's, is commission and advocacy work rather than a councilmember's votes.

Keep in mind

He withdrew once, believing the incumbent would run again, then re-entered when she didn't — a real second-guess worth knowing about going in, not a disqualifying one.

Source review: Strong (87/100) · 4 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

Last updated August 31, 2026.