Skip to main content

City of Burlingame · Statewide General Election

Burlingame City Council, District 1

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 would hold one of Burlingame's five district-elected City Council seats: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this San Mateo County city of about 31,400 residents. A 4-year term. The Council selects a Mayor and Vice Mayor from among its own members each year rather than voters choosing either office directly.

Only one candidate qualified for this seat. Vice Mayor Andrea Pappajohn, a sustainability and climate-action professional who has represented District 1 since Burlingame moved to by-district elections, appears unopposed -- so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome.

This person holds one of Burlingame's five district-elected City Council seats: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this San Mateo County city of about 31,400 residents. A 4-year term. The Council selects a Mayor and Vice Mayor from among its own members each year -- Pappajohn currently holds the Vice Mayor's chair -- rather than voters choosing either office directly.

With no opponent, the useful question is not who to choose but what's known about the officeholder and what to watch next. An unopposed return means accountability for this seat over the next four years runs through public records and the next election rather than through this ballot.

Andrea Pappajohn

Pappajohn is the sitting Vice Mayor and a sustainability and climate-action professional with more than a decade of experience building environmental programs for Burlingame, Millbrae, and San Mateo County. She led development of Burlingame's 2030 Climate Action Plan and ran a 'Recycle Soccer Gear' donation drive from 2009 to 2020 that sent thousands of soccer items to children in four countries. She chairs the city's Airport Land Use Commission and Economic Development Subcommittee, previously chaired the Parks & Recreation Commission, and has lived in District 1 for more than two decades, where she and her husband raised three children.

Strengths

A deep bench of city and regional committee experience -- Airport Land Use Commission chair, prior Parks & Recreation Commission chair, and a decade-plus building the city's climate program.

Trade-offs

A specific second-term platform beyond her existing committee work is not separately documented from public sources.

Keep in mind

Running unopposed, she has had little occasion to generate contested-campaign coverage comparing her record against an alternative.

Source review: Strong (87/100) · 5 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • smcacre.gov (opens in a new tab)San Mateo County ACRE -- Roster of Candidates, Qualified Candidates Only, November 3, 2026 General Election (CFMR009), dated 2026-08-25: names all three Burlingame City Council district seats on the ballot this cycle (Districts 1, 3, 5), each flagged 'On Ballot: Yes,' the qualified candidate(s) per seat, filing/qualification dates, and each candidate's filed ballot designation
  • burlingame.org (opens in a new tab)City of Burlingame -- official 'Meet the Council' roster page (names Michael Brownrigg as Mayor, Andrea Pappajohn as Vice Mayor, and Donna Colson, Desiree Thayer, Peter Stevenson as Councilmembers), 'District Elections' page (the January 17, 2020 CVRA demand letter, intent Resolution 032-2020, Ordinance 2003 adopted January 18, 2022 with Draft Map D, and that Districts 2 and 4 elected in 2024), 'Running for City Council' page (the candidate-filing period and required state disclosure forms), and the city's January 20, 2026 'Council Assignments' PDF (confirming the sitting five-member council and that Brownrigg, not Stevenson, holds the committee slots the Mayor appoints)
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- 'Burlingame, California': 2020 Census population figure (31,386) only; the article's claim that Peter Stevenson is the current Mayor is treated as stale against the city's own current council roster page and not repeated in this dataset
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- a negative-result campaign-finance search: a direct query for each of Burlingame's four 2026 City Council candidates (Pappajohn, Faber, Wettan, Stevenson) returned only a blocked, unrenderable page in every attempt this session, the same recurring bot-detection failure mode documented elsewhere in this dataset. Cal-Access also covers only state-level committees, not local city-council candidates
  • burlingame.org (opens in a new tab)City of Burlingame -- official council-member biography for Vice Mayor Andrea Pappajohn (District 1): a sustainability and climate-action professional for more than a decade, author of Burlingame's 2030 Climate Action Plan, led a 'Recycle Soccer Gear' donation program (2009-2020), chairs the Airport Land Use Commission and Economic Development Subcommittee, and a 20-plus-year District 1 resident

Last updated September 1, 2026.