# Arcadia City Council, District 3 Compare records and positions simply between John Han, Grace Arabella Lee, or Cynthia Ng Monje for Arcadia City Council, District 3 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Arcadia's 5-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. - Jurisdiction: City of Arcadia - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/arcadia-council-3 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 7, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 88 out of 100 (Strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **John Han** — Incumbent - **Grace Arabella Lee** - **Cynthia Ng Monje** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. 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; Han now seeks it in their 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. They vote on 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 Han 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 their family for more than a decade. The City Council appointed Han to the District 3 seat in June 2026, its top-ranked choice among the finalists to fill Eileen Wang's unexpired term. They are 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 Han is now asking for. **Keep in mind:** They hold the seat their predecessor vacated over a foreign-agent conviction. Nothing ties them 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. Their 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 them 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:** Theirs 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. They were among the applicants the council considered for the June appointment to this seat and were not chosen. They are 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 Monje 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. ## Review notes - 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. ## Sources 1. [Arcadia City Clerk — Nominations for Members of the City Council, November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election (Districts 2, 3, 5)](https://www.arcadiaca.gov/Document%20Center/Government/City%20Clerk/Elections/Nov.%203%2C%202026%2C%20Election/Candidates%20for%20City%20Council%20November%203%2C%202026%20%28Public%29.pdf) 2. [Arcadia City Clerk — Elections information and Campaign Filings portal, November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election](https://www.arcadiaca.gov/government/city_clerk/campaigns_filings.php) 3. [City of Arcadia — City Council member pages (Sharon Kwan, Michael Cao, and John Han's June 2026 appointment)](https://www.arcadiaca.gov/government/city_council/index.php) 4. [HeySoCal (Southern California News Group) — coverage of Eileen Wang's resignation and the District 3 appointment process, May-June 2026](https://heysocal.com/2026/06/03/deadlocked-arcadia-council-delays-appointment-to-seat-vacated-by-admitted-spy/) 5. [Arcadia District 2, 3 and 5 candidates' own campaign sites and social pages (Burton Brink, Steve Rhee, Grace Arabella Lee)](https://www.burtonbrink.com/) ## The rest of the ballot Arcadia City Council, District 3 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Arcadia City Council, District 3 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/arcadia-council-3 (sources last retrieved September 7, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.