City of Carmel By The Sea · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea

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On the ballot

David Boland — Banking Executive
Hans Buder — Carmel City Councilmember

This person would be Carmel-by-the-Sea's directly elected Mayor -- one seat on a five-member City Council (the Mayor plus four Councilmembers, all elected at-large rather than by district) that sets the budget, land use, and municipal ordinances for this Monterey County village of 3,220 residents (2020 Census), while the City Administrator runs day-to-day operations. The Mayor's term is 2 years, half the length of a Councilmember's.

Carmel-by-the-Sea elects a new Mayor on November 3, 2026: sitting Mayor Dale Byrne is not running for a second term, so the seat is open between sitting Councilmember Hans Buder and banking executive David Boland.

Buder was the first to declare, a week after Byrne announced in April he would not seek reelection; Boland filed later in the nomination period, which the city extended five days (to Aug. 12) before closing with just these two names. Buder is currently a sitting Councilmember, but neither candidate is the incumbent Mayor, since Byrne himself is not on this ballot -- this is an open-seat race, not a referendum on an incumbent.

Hans Buder

Hans Buder is a sitting Carmel Councilmember, elected to the seat in 2024 after serving on the city's Forest & Beach Commission and chairing the Housing Authority of the County of Monterey; his professional background is in financing low- to mixed-income housing. In his own candidate statement he cites, as a Councilmember, leading an amendment to the city's Housing Element, spearheading its wildfire-preparedness initiative, putting city finances on "a sustainable long-term footing," and pressing PG&E to restore power during a Christmas outage. His stated top priority as Mayor is a city government that is "more effective, more efficient and more accountable," with performance goals tracked against resident satisfaction and permit-processing times, alongside long-term attention to aging infrastructure and the loss of full-time resident families.

Strengths

A sitting Councilmember's record to run on -- the Housing Element amendment, wildfire-preparedness work, and city finance work, independently confirmed by Monterey County Weekly's own reporting.

Trade-offs

The accomplishments above are his own account in his filed candidate statement, not an independent audit of council votes or city outcomes; no opposing account of his record was found.

Keep in mind

As a sitting Councilmember rather than the sitting Mayor, a vote for Buder is a vote to promote an incumbent official to a different seat, not to retain the current Mayor -- weigh his council record specifically, not city performance broadly.

David Boland

David Boland's ballot designation is "Banking Executive." His filed candidate statement is a short, largely rhetorical appeal about Carmel residents "writing the story" of the village for future generations, and does not name an employer, prior public role, or specific policy position. No independent profile of his background was found in this county's local press this pass -- an honest gap in what is publicly reachable about him, not a claim that no further background exists.

Strengths

A newcomer's outside perspective on a council he has not served on; nothing in the record reachable this pass ties him to any specific city decision, for or against.

Trade-offs

No independent reporting on his background or platform was found beyond his own filed statement and ballot designation, "Banking Executive" -- less to evaluate than his opponent's record.

Keep in mind

His own statement stays at the level of values and legacy rather than naming specific priorities, so voters weighing concrete platform positions will find less to compare here than with Buder.

Source review: Very strong (91/100) · 9 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

ci.carmel.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Carmel-by-the-Sea -- official City Clerk "Elections" page: states plainly that the Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Election will elect "One Mayor, for a term of 2 years" and "Two Councilmembers, for a term of 4 years," both elected at-large; lists the five final "Candidates on the Ballot" by office with each candidate's ballot designation and a link to their city-clerk-stamped Candidate Statement of Qualifications; and confirms the nomination period was extended from Aug. 7 to Aug. 12, 2026 and has now closed, and that Council Members and the Mayor "are elected at-large and serve staggering terms." Also names the city's public campaign-disclosure portal at netfile.com/public/cml/campaign/elections.
web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Elections -- official "Candidate List" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election, via an Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshot from Aug. 23, 2026 (the live site's own DOM renders office titles only, never per-seat candidate names, elsewhere in this dataset, but this archived snapshot rendered the full accordion content): shows "CITY OF CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA Mayor," "Vote for One" -- David Boland (Banking Executive) and Hans Buder (Carmel City Councilmember) -- and "CITY OF CARMEL-BY-THE-SEA Member, City Council," "Vote for no more than 2" -- Alissandra Dramov (City Council Member), Bobby Richards (Driving Instructor), and Stefan Karapetkov (Planning Commissioner) -- independently matching the city's own elections page roster.
montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Carmel Councilmember Jeff Baron announces he won't run for reelection after eight years in office" (Pam Marino, July 21, 2026): reports Baron -- not Dramov -- is giving up the other council seat up this cycle; confirms "For the election on Nov. 3, the two-year mayor's seat and two four-year councilmember seats will be decided on by the voters," that Buder is so far the only mayoral candidate to take out nomination papers, that Dramov turned in verified nomination papers for a second term on July 20, that Karapetkov turned in verified nomination papers the same day, and that the nomination period ends 5pm Friday, Aug. 7 (later extended to Aug. 12 per the city's own elections page).
en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Carmel-by-the-Sea, California": 2020 Census population (3,220); used narrowly for this figure, not for any 2026 election detail.
ci.carmel.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Carmel-by-the-Sea -- David Boland's official, city-clerk-stamped Candidate Statement of Qualifications (filed Aug. 12, 2026): a short vision statement about writing "the story of Carmel-by-the-Sea" for future generations, with no biographical detail beyond his ballot designation, Banking Executive.
ci.carmel.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Carmel-by-the-Sea -- Hans Buder's official, city-clerk-stamped Candidate Statement of Qualifications (filed July 28, 2026): occupation listed as "Carmel City Councilmember"; describes leading a Housing Element amendment, the city's wildfire-preparedness initiative, putting city finances on a sustainable footing, and pressing PG&E during a Christmas power outage, with a stated top priority of a more effective, efficient, and accountable city government.
montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "After Carmel Mayor Byrne announces he's not running, a councilmember jumps into the race" (Pam Marino, Apr. 9, 2026): reports Councilmember Hans Buder is the first candidate to declare for Mayor, a week after Mayor Dale Byrne announced he would not seek a second term; independently corroborates Buder's 2024 council election, prior service on the Forest & Beach Commission, chairmanship of the Housing Authority of the County of Monterey, and background financing low- to mixed-income housing.
cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- a Monterey County candidate-filer-list query (session 2025-2026, county code 27) intended to check all five Carmel candidates: returned an Incapsula bot-detection challenge page rather than real content via direct fetch; no live-browser fallback was available this session either, the same automated-access block already documented elsewhere in this dataset.
netfile.com (opens in a new tab)NetFile -- the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea's own official public campaign-finance disclosure portal, named on the city's elections page, for all five candidates' Form 460 filings: the portal is a client-rendered single-page application with no static HTML content and no discoverable public API endpoint reachable via direct fetch this pass (its bundled JavaScript names internal route paths -- /campaign/elections, /campaign/persons -- but no working data endpoint could be found); no live-browser fallback was available this session. A documented access gap, not a claim about any candidate's actual filings.

Last updated September 1, 2026.