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City of Atwater · Statewide General Election

Atwater City Council, District 3

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On the ballot

This person would hold one of four district-elected seats on Atwater's 5-member City Council (the Mayor is the fifth, elected citywide), serving a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Merced County city of about 31,970 residents (2020 Census). Atwater runs under a council-manager government, with an appointed City Manager handling day-to-day operations.

Shawn Conour is running unopposed for Atwater City Council District 3 -- the only candidate who qualified for the seat, which incumbent Danny Ambriz, first elected in 2022, did not file to keep.

District 3 is one of four district-elected seats on Atwater's 5-member City Council -- the Mayor is the fifth, elected citywide -- serving a 4-year term under the city's council-manager government, which sets ordinances, the budget, and land use for this part of the city.

Conour currently serves as a member of the city's own Planning Commission, appointed to a term running through December 2028 per the commission's own roster page; that is the only independently confirmed fact about him beyond his name on the county's certified candidate list. He did not file a ballot designation or a candidate statement, and no biography, campaign website, or news coverage was found for him this session despite searches of the city's own site, the Merced County Times' archive, Ballotpedia, and general web search.

Shawn Conour

Shawn Conour is a sitting member of Atwater's Planning Commission, appointed to a term running through December 2028, per the commission's own city roster page. Beyond that civic role and his name on the county's certified candidate list, no further biography, occupation, campaign website, or news coverage was found for him this session.

Strengths

Current service on the city's Planning Commission -- a real, independently confirmed civic role, though not the same as prior City Council experience.

Trade-offs

He filed no ballot designation and no candidate statement, and no news coverage, campaign website, or biography beyond the Planning Commission roster was found for him this session.

Keep in mind

Running unopposed, he is effectively elected regardless of turnout -- this is a vote to formally seat him, not a comparison between candidates.

Source review: Strong (84/100) · 6 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • countyofmerced.com (opens in a new tab)Merced County -- official "November 3 2026 General Election -- All Contests -- Final Qualified Candidate List" (report CFMR009, printed 8/25/2026 3:26:53PM): confirms exactly three Atwater contests, all "On Ballot: Yes" -- ATWATER MAYOR (Roberto Montes-Yepez, "Utility Worker / Artist," no candidate statement filed; Mike Nelson, "Mayor / Business Owner," incumbent, statement filed 7/20/2026), ATWATER COUNCILMEMBER DISTRICT 3 (Shawn Conour, no ballot designation, no statement filed), and ATWATER COUNCILMEMBER DISTRICT 4 (Adam R Conour, no ballot designation, statement filed 7/27/2026).
  • atwater.org (opens in a new tab)City of Atwater -- own City Council page: names, in the city's own words, all five current members and their terms -- Mayor Mike Nelson (Nov. 2022-Nov. 2026), Mayor Pro Tem John Cale, District 1 (Nov. 2024-Nov. 2028), Kalisa Rochester, District 2 (Nov. 2024-Nov. 2028), Danny Ambriz, District 3 (Nov. 2022-Nov. 2026), and Brian Raymond, District 4 (Nov. 2022-Nov. 2026) -- and states the Mayor is directly, citywide-elected, is "president of the City Council" and presides at meetings, "possesses no veto power," and serves as "the official head of the City for ceremonial purposes," while the other four seats are elected by district.
  • atwater.org (opens in a new tab)City of Atwater -- own Planning Commission roster page: lists Shawn Conour among five named Commissioners, serving a 4-year term running through December 2028 -- the only independently confirmed fact about him beyond the county's candidate list.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Atwater, California": used narrowly for the dated 2020 Census population figure (31,970, up from 28,168 in 2010) and as an independent cross-check that Mike Nelson is the current Mayor.
  • atwater.org (opens in a new tab)City of Atwater -- own Campaign Filings page: hosts Form 460/410/700 documents only for the 2022 and 2024 election cycles -- including Mike Nelson's own 2022 mayoral committee ("Committee to Elect Mike Nelson Atwater Mayor 2022"), whose Form 410 termination statement (filed 6/30/2022) shows that committee was formally closed out after that race, and Kalisa Rochester's 2024 District 2 filings -- with no 2026-cycle filing posted for any of this cycle's four Atwater candidates as of this pass. Documents the absence of a current local financial-disclosure filing, not any candidate's actual finances.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- committee/filer searches attempted for all four candidates (Mike Nelson, Roberto Montes-Yepez, Shawn Conour, Adam R Conour): every query returned no usable results, the same recurring bot-detection block documented elsewhere in this dataset -- and Cal-Access's documented scope covers state-level filings only, which excludes local candidates in any case.

Last updated September 1, 2026.