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City of Culver City · Statewide General Election

Culver City City Council

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

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 holds one of Culver City's five at-large City Council seats: the budget, land-use and zoning decisions, and city ordinances. A 4-year term. The council doesn't elect its mayor directly -- members choose one of their own to serve as mayor and vice mayor each year, presiding over meetings but casting only one vote like every other member. Day-to-day operations run through a city manager the council appoints.

Two of Culver City's five at-large council seats are on the November 3 ballot. Incumbent Mayor Freddy Puza, elected in 2022, is seeking a second term; his fellow 2022 classmate, Councilmember Dan O'Brien, chose not to run again, leaving his seat open. Five candidates are competing for the two seats: Puza, former Mayor Thomas Aujero Small, small-business owner Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, psychologist Franklin Carvajal, and retired law-enforcement officer Kimberley "Kim" Griffin.

Whoever wins joins a five-member council that sets the budget, land-use and zoning decisions, and city ordinances for a roughly 40,000-resident city wedged between LA's Westside and the South Bay -- home to Sony Pictures Studios and Amazon Studios. It's a 4-year term, expiring December 2030. The council doesn't elect its mayor directly: members choose one of their own to serve as mayor and vice mayor each year on a rotating basis, presiding over meetings but casting only one vote like every other member. Day-to-day operations run through a city manager the council appoints.

Because two seats are open, voters can back one candidate or two; the top two vote-getters win outright, with no runoff. The clearest divide in the race is continuity versus a reset: Puza and Small, cross-endorsing each other, are defending the current council's direction -- including its financing of the Jubilo Village affordable-housing project -- while Wisnosky Stehlin and Griffin are campaigning on financial oversight and skepticism of that same spending. Carvajal is the field's outsider, not aligned with either bloc.

Freddy Puza

Freddy Puza is Culver City's current Mayor and a first-term councilmember, elected in 2022 and chosen by his colleagues as the city's first openly LGBTQ+ mayor. He's running for a second term on expanding housing affordability, advancing the Better Overland safe-streets project, and continuing the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund and Mobile Crisis Team. He led the council to its first balanced budget in three years, and at an August candidate forum defended the city's reserve loans to the Jubilo Village affordable-housing project.

Strengths

Incumbent experience as sitting Mayor, endorsements from Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, Supervisor Holly Mitchell, and a state senator, and a first balanced budget in three years.

Trade-offs

Owns the current council's record, including the reserve loan and Section 8 vouchers that financed Jubilo Village -- the forum's most contested vote among the five.

Keep in mind

He defended that financing as a response to the state rescinding redevelopment housing money, saying "we never had invested in affordable housing in this way" -- weigh that against Wisnosky Stehlin and Griffin's oversight critique.

Thomas Aujero Small

Thomas Aujero Small is a former Culver City Mayor and councilmember (2016-2020), now an architectural and urban-planning consultant, seeking a return to the seat he left in 2020. He's campaigning on his record championing renter protections, the Ballona Creek Bikeway extension, and downtown revitalization, and on six years of regional planning work since leaving office. His campaign launched with the endorsement of Mayor Puza and Vice Mayor Fish, the sitting council's current leadership.

Strengths

A prior term as Mayor and councilmember (2016-2020) plus six years of regional planning work, and endorsements from Mayor Puza and Vice Mayor Fish, the sitting council's leadership.

Trade-offs

A comeback bid after four years away from the dais; his own council record (renter protections, Measure RE, the Ballona Creek Bikeway grant) is now six years old.

Keep in mind

He took the forum's most guarded position on Jubilo Village -- calling municipal bonding standard practice while adding "I might not have voted for that" -- a stance that reads as neither full defense nor real challenge.

Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin

Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin is a small-business owner and nonprofit executive director who served as a Culver City Cultural Affairs Commissioner from 2016 to 2024. She's running on parks and neighborhood quality of life, affordability, homelessness, street and pedestrian safety, and what she calls fiscally responsible leadership that listens to residents. This is her second run for a council seat, and at the August candidate forum she challenged the council's use of reserves to fund Jubilo Village.

Strengths

Eight years as a Cultural Affairs Commissioner (2016-2024) and CCUSD bond-oversight service, plus endorsements from Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and State Treasurer Fiona Ma.

Trade-offs

No prior elected office; her platform names broad priorities -- affordability, safety, parks -- without the office-holding record Puza and Small can point to.

Keep in mind

At the forum she argued the city was "borrowing towards our reserves" and pointed to a roughly $3 million industry-average municipal affordable-housing contribution against the city's much larger one -- a comparison the city disputes.

Franklin Carvajal

Franklin Carvajal is a clinical psychologist and small-business owner who immigrated alone from Caracas, Venezuela at age 16 and later earned two PhDs. He's running on public safety, clean streets and parks, thoughtful development, and government transparency, under the banner of a city that is "safe, clean, quiet, beautiful, and accountable." He's the field's lowest-profile candidate: unlike the other four, he did not appear at the August 17 candidate forum Culver City Democrats United hosted for the race.

Strengths

A clinical psychologist and small-business owner whose own path -- arriving alone from Venezuela at 16 -- he cites as grounding his focus on practical, everyday city services.

Trade-offs

No prior city commission or elected experience, and the lowest public profile of the five -- he did not appear at the August 17 CCDU candidate forum the other four attended.

Keep in mind

His platform (safety, clean streets, transparency) reads as broadly compatible with any of the other four's -- without a forum appearance, there is less independent record of how he'd navigate a specific vote like Jubilo Village.

Kimberley "Kim" Griffin

Kimberley "Kim" Griffin is a Culver City resident with more than two decades in local law enforcement, running as a community volunteer and public-safety professional. She's campaigning on connecting unhoused residents with services, affordable housing, small-business support, and infrastructure investment, plus what she calls stopping wasteful spending and making City Hall more transparent. She argued at the August forum that the Jubilo Village financing decision should have gone to voters.

Strengths

More than two decades in local law enforcement, and endorsements from both Culver City Democrats United and the Heart of LA Democratic Club after the club's candidate forum.

Trade-offs

No prior elected or commission experience; her ballot designation, "Community Volunteer," understates the public-safety career her campaign otherwise leads with.

Keep in mind

She argued the Jubilo Village financing "should have gone to a ballot" for voter approval -- the race's sharpest process critique -- but has not proposed how the project would otherwise have been funded.

Source review: Strong (80/100) · 14 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: Franklin Carvajal for Culver City Council -- campaign site, Freddy Puza for Culver City Council -- campaign site (bio as the city's first openly LGBTQ+ Mayor, priorities, endorsements), Kimberley Griffin for Culver City Council -- campaign site, Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin for Culver City Council -- campaign site, and Thomas Small for Culver City -- campaign site may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

Last updated August 31, 2026.