# Carpinteria City Council, District 1

Compare records and positions simply between Monica Solorzano or Aja Forner for Carpinteria City Council, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold your district's seat on Carpinteria's five-member City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. Carpinteria is a Santa Barbara County city of 13,264 residents. A professional city manager runs day-to-day operations. The council picks the Mayor and Vice Mayor from among its own members. Voters do not elect the Mayor or Vice Mayor directly. The term is four years.

- Jurisdiction: City of Carpinteria
- 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/carpinteria-council-1
- 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 1, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 9 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Monica Solorzano** — City Council Member District 1 · Incumbent
- **Aja Forner** — Library Commissioner

A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.

Two candidates are running for Carpinteria's District 1 City Council seat: incumbent Vice Mayor Monica Solorzano and challenger Aja Forner, a Carpinteria Library Commissioner. Whoever gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright -- no primary, no runoff.

This is one of Carpinteria's five City Council districts. Council members set city ordinances, the budget, and land-use policy. They serve this Santa Barbara County beach town of 13,264 residents, per the 2020 Census. A professional city manager runs day-to-day operations. Carpinteria's Mayor and Vice Mayor are not elected directly. The Council chooses them from among its own members, customarily for two-year terms. This seat carries a four-year term.

Solorzano is completing their first term. They have also served as Vice Mayor. Forner has not held elected office. She currently serves as an appointed Library Commissioner. Both candidates filed an official ballot statement with the city. Carpinteria's own paper, Coastal View News, covered both campaigns in its roundup of the November ballot. Independent news coverage beyond that roundup is uneven. A Santa Barbara Independent feature covers Solorzano's candidacy announcement in depth. No comparable dedicated profile of Forner was found. That is a difference in the available public record. A sitting Councilmember leaves more of one than a first-time challenger does.

## Monica Solorzano

Monica Solorzano is the district's incumbent and Vice Mayor; their approved ballot designation is "City Council Member District 1." They hold a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a master's degree from Columbia University's Teachers College, and live in Carpinteria with their husband and two daughters. Their filed candidate statement says they have strengthened community engagement, advocated for immigrant and working families, helped launch the city's AgeWell senior-services program through an ad hoc planning committee, joined the board of the Carpinteria Arts Center, and guided long-term planning efforts; they name housing, growth, street and infrastructure improvements, coastal resilience, public safety, and environmental protection as the city's next challenges, and pledge continued focus on affordable and workforce housing, support for local families, seniors, immigrant communities, and small businesses, and accessible government. A dedicated Santa Barbara Independent profile of Solorzano's candidacy adds that they have served multiple terms as President of Aliso Elementary School's PTA, completed two cycles on the school's Site Council, and serve on the boards of the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District and the Mariachi Estrellas youth music program.

**Strengths:** A full first term's record as sitting Councilmember and Vice Mayor to run on. Solorzano also has independent news coverage in the Santa Barbara Independent, beyond their own campaign material.

**Trade-offs:** The outcomes they cite in their own statement are their own account. Those include the AgeWell program and long-term planning. No independent accounting of their Council votes was found.

**Keep in mind:** Solorzano is the only incumbent in this race. A vote for them is a referendum on their first term. That is distinct from Forner's outsider bid. Weigh it against Forner's platform above.

## Aja Forner

Aja Forner is a first-time candidate for elected office; her approved ballot designation is "Library Commissioner," an appointed post she currently holds. Her filed candidate statement describes her as a Program & Volunteer Manager with Therapy Dogs of America, coordinating volunteers, building community partnerships, and developing programs across Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. She says she will work to protect the Carpinteria Bluffs from development, rein in what she calls unnecessary spending, and prioritize repairing roads and aging infrastructure, and that Carpinteria should take an active role in shaping how state-mandated housing is planned and integrated into the community. Coastal View News' own roundup of the race describes her campaign theme as "Protecting What We Love. Planning for What We Need," emphasizing community-character preservation and fiscal transparency.

**Strengths:** Current appointed service on the city's Library Commission. That is the closest thing to City Hall experience in the field, besides Solorzano's own Council seat.

**Trade-offs:** No campaign website, news profile, or other coverage was found beyond her filed statement and Coastal View's roundup. That is a first-time challenger's shorter record, not a shortcut here.

**Keep in mind:** Her priorities partly overlap Solorzano's. She would protect the Bluffs, hold down spending, and fix infrastructure. Her unnecessary spending framing suggests a different starting point on some votes.

## Sources

1. [City of Carpinteria -- "CERTIFIED LIST OF CANDIDATES FOR CITY OF CARPINTERIA GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION - NOVEMBER 3, 2026" (dated August 12, 2026; the city's website links this document under a later "WEBSITE Updated 08-28-26" filename, but its content is the same August 12 certified roster): three contests -- District 1 (Monica Solorzano vs. Aja Forner), District 3 (Julia Mayer, unopposed), and District 5 (Alexandra "Xy" VanAntwerp vs. Randy Carrasco) -- with each candidate's approved ballot designation and whether they filed a candidate statement](https://carpinteriaca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/City-of-Carpinteria-Certified-List-of-Candidates-Nov.-3-2026-WEBSITE-Updated-08-28-26.pdf)
2. [City of Carpinteria -- "NOTICE OF OFFICES AND NOMINATIONS" (posted August 4, 2026, signed by City Clerk/Elections Official Brian C. Barrett): confirms three City Council seats -- District Nos. 1, 3, and 5, each a full four-year term -- and states the District No. 5 incumbent is not seeking re-election, extending that district's nomination window to August 12, 2026](https://carpinteriaca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Notice-of-Offices-and-Nominations-2026.pdf)
3. [City of Carpinteria -- City Clerk / Elections page: confirms the November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election covers three Council seats (Districts 1, 3, 5), the nomination-period dates, and links the certified candidate list, notices, and district candidate-statement documents; states the City Clerk is the local filing officer for candidate campaign-disclosure reports but links no self-service filing portal, directing inquiries to the state FPPC generally](https://carpinteriaca.gov/city-hall/city-clerk/)
4. [City of Carpinteria -- City Council page: describes a 5-member, district-elected Council whose Mayor and Vice Mayor are "selected by their fellow Council members" and "customarily serve two-year terms" (not directly elected), and lists the current roster -- Mayor Natalia Alarcon (District 2, term ends Dec. 2028), Vice Mayor Monica Solorzano (District 1, term ends Dec. 2026), Al Clark (District 5, term ends Dec. 2026), Julia Mayer (District 3, term ends Dec. 2026), and Wade T. Nomura (District 4, term ends Dec. 2028) -- confirming which three districts are up this cycle and that Al Clark, not a certified candidate, is the retiring District 5 incumbent](https://carpinteriaca.gov/city-hall/citycouncil/)
5. [Wikipedia -- "Carpinteria, California": 2020 Census population (13,264) and independently corroborates Natalia Alarcon as Mayor; used narrowly for demographic/structural facts and does not cover the 2026 election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpinteria,_California)
6. [Coastal View News -- "November ballot set: Council races, sales tax" (Aug. 19, 2026): Carpinteria's own local paper independently confirms all three Council contests (District 1 and 5 contested, District 3 uncontested), summarizes each candidate's campaign framing, and reports a proposed quarter-cent sales-tax ballot measure (parked as a ballot measure per this dataset's measures-descoped policy, not built here)](https://www.coastalview.com/news/november-ballot-set-council-races-sales-tax/article_e41f9463-d6f7-4f6a-a1b7-827356db26d8.html)
7. [California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- filer searches for all five Carpinteria candidates (Solorzano, Forner, Mayer, VanAntwerp, Carrasco): every query returned no extractable content, consistent with this dataset's documented pattern of Cal-Access blocking automated queries elsewhere this session; the session's live-browser fallback was disconnected throughout, so no in-browser retry was possible either](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Misc/filerSearch.aspx?SEARCH=Carpinteria+City+Council)
8. [City of Carpinteria -- District 1 Candidate Statements (filed under Elections Code 13307): the filed statements of Monica Solorzano and Aja Forner, in their own words](https://carpinteriaca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/District-1-Candidate-Statements-Website.pdf)
9. [The Santa Barbara Independent -- "Monica Solorzano Announces Her Candidacy for Re-Election to the Carpinteria City Council District 1" (Aug. 5, 2026): covers her Princeton/Columbia education, first-term committee and board service (AgeWell senior-services ad hoc committee, Carpinteria Arts Center board, Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District board), and policy priorities; endorsements reported in this piece are not used, per this dataset's endorsements-descoped policy](https://www.independent.com/2026/08/05/monica-solorzano-announces-her-candidacy-for-re-election-to-the-carpinteria-city-council-district-1/)

## The rest of the ballot

Carpinteria City Council, District 1 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, "Carpinteria City Council, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/carpinteria-council-1 (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.