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City of Arcadia · Statewide General Election

Arcadia City Council, District 3

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 Arcadia's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use.

The District 3 seat is open after Eileen Wang, who held it while also serving as the council's rotating mayor, resigned in May 2026 after pleading guilty to acting as an illegal agent of the People's Republic of China. The City Council appointed John Han to the seat in June to serve out her term; he now seeks it in his own right against Grace Arabella Lee and retired JPL administrator Cynthia Ng Monje, who had applied for the same appointment and was not selected.

The winner serves a four-year term on Arcadia's five-member City Council: city ordinances, the citywide budget, and land-use decisions, plus a share in the council's rotating mayor's chair.

This is an appointment now tested at the ballot, not an ordinary open seat: Han already holds the office by the council's June vote and is asking voters to keep him for a full term, Monje sought that same appointment and was passed over, and Lee enters with no city government record at all. The vacancy itself is not on the ballot — only who holds what has become, again, an ordinary four-year term.

John Han

Han is a self-employed investment manager who has lived in Arcadia with his family for more than a decade. The City Council appointed him to the District 3 seat in June 2026, its top-ranked choice among the finalists to fill Eileen Wang's unexpired term. He is now running to keep the seat for a full four-year term.

Strengths

Already doing the job — a council vote of confidence in June and several months in the seat ahead of facing voters.

Trade-offs

A short record to run on, and it began by appointment rather than election, a different mandate than the one he is now asking for.

Keep in mind

He holds the seat his predecessor vacated over a foreign-agent conviction. Nothing ties him to that case, but the seat's recent history is part of what District 3 is weighing this fall.

Grace Arabella Lee

Lee is a substitute teacher, author, and ordained reverend active in Arcadia's faith community, running for the District 3 seat. Her campaign describes building bridges of faith, love, and community as its animating idea. Beyond that framing, no detailed policy platform for the council seat is documented.

Strengths

A community-facing career in teaching and ministry that puts her in regular contact with residents outside city government.

Trade-offs

No experience in city government, elected or appointed, and no documented platform addressing the council's actual work — budgets, ordinances, land use.

Keep in mind

Hers is the thinnest public record of the three candidates; if a fuller platform surfaces, the weekly refresh will catch it.

Cynthia Ng Monje

Monje is a retired senior executive administrator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a more than 20-year Arcadia resident. She was among the applicants the council considered for the June appointment to this seat and was not chosen. She is now seeking the seat directly from voters instead.

Strengths

Two decades in Arcadia plus a senior administrative career at a major federal research institution, the kind of budget and operations experience a council seat draws on directly.

Trade-offs

No prior elected or appointed city office, and the council already passed over her once for this same seat.

Keep in mind

Being passed over for an appointment says only that the council preferred someone else in June — an election is a different, and larger, jury.

Source review: Strong (88/100) · 5 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: Arcadia District 2, 3 and 5 candidates' own campaign sites and social pages (Burton Brink, Steve Rhee, Grace Arabella Lee) may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

Last updated August 30, 2026.