# Dinuba City Council, District 4

Laura Rico is running uncontested for Dinuba City Council, District 4. Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of five district-elected seats on Dinuba's City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. Dinuba is a Tulare County city of roughly 24,600 residents. The term is four years. Whoever gets the most votes wins, with no runoff. Dinuba is a Charter City. The Council picks one of its own members to serve as Mayor. It picks another as Vice Mayor. Voters do not elect either office directly. Terms are staggered. Districts 2, 3, and 4, this ballot's three seats, elect together. Districts 1 and 5 follow four years later.

- Jurisdiction: City of Dinuba
- 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/dinuba-council-4
- 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: 88 out of 100 (Strong), across 7 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Laura Rico** — Retired Educator/author

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

Only one candidate qualified for this seat. Laura Rico appears unopposed, so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome. Sitting incumbent Kuldip Thusu did not file to keep it, leaving the seat open.

This person would hold one of five district-elected seats on Dinuba's City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this roughly 24,600-resident Tulare County city, long known for its raisin and packing-house agricultural economy. The term is four years. Whoever gets the most votes wins -- there is no runoff. Dinuba is a Charter City; the Council selects one of its own members to serve as Mayor and another as Vice Mayor, rather than voters electing either office directly, and terms are staggered so Districts 2, 3, and 4 (this ballot's three seats) elect together, with Districts 1 and 5 following four years later.

Unlike Districts 2 and 3, this is an open seat: sitting Councilmember Kuldip Thusu's term ends this cycle and he did not refile. Nobody filed by the regular deadline either -- the county's own document flags this contest as having gone into a filing extension -- and Rico filed on August 7, the last day before the extended window closed. With no opponent, the useful question is not who to choose but who they are, and this dataset can confirm only what their filed ballot designation states.

## Laura Rico

Rico's filed ballot designation is "Retired Educator/author." Unlike the two incumbents on this ballot, Rico has no city Councilmember bio page, and no independent campaign site, biography, or local news coverage was found for them this pass -- a dedicated search (by name, plus Ballotpedia, which has no Dinuba page at all) turned up nothing beyond the county's own filing record. This dataset reports exactly that rather than inventing detail: an occupation and a filing date are the full extent of what's confirmed about them.

**Strengths:** Filed and qualified for an open seat nobody sought by the regular deadline; Rico's "Retired Educator/author" designation at least signals a community-facing career.

**Trade-offs:** No confirmed platform, endorsement, or public statement of any kind -- essentially nothing beyond a name, an occupation, and a filing date is confirmed.

**Keep in mind:** Rico is unopposed on an open seat where the outgoing incumbent didn't run again, so nothing in this dataset explains why Thusu stepped back or what continuity (if any) voters should expect from his replacement.

## Sources

1. [Tulare County Elections -- the same official "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (CFMR001) used above, re-extracted in full this pass to reach its "Non-Partisan City" section: lists exactly three City of Dinuba contests, all flagged ON BALLOT / Vote For 1, each with one qualified candidate -- Ward 2 (incumbent Maribel Reynosa), Ward 3 (incumbent Benjamin "Benny" Prado), and Ward 4 (Laura Rico, "Retired Educator/author"; sitting incumbent Kuldip Thusu did not appear among its qualified candidates, and the contest is flagged as having gone into a filing extension)](https://tc-web.widen.net/s/sgnr5sgmjc/novgenuocl)
2. [City of Dinuba -- official City Council page: names all five sitting district Councilmembers and their titles (Rachel Nerio-Guerrero, Mayor, District 1; Benjamin Prado, Vice Mayor, District 3; Kuldip Thusu, Councilmember, District 4; Maribel Reynosa, Councilmember, District 2; Linda Launer, Councilmember, District 5), an exact name match against the county's Ward 2/3/4 filings](https://www.dinuba.org/government/city-council)
3. [City of Dinuba -- official Elections page: confirms Dinuba is a Charter City, that the Tulare County Registrar of Voters administers city elections' mechanics, and that FPPC/campaign- finance filing compliance runs through the City Clerk's office -- no online disclosure portal (NetFile or otherwise) is named or linked anywhere on the site](https://www.dinuba.org/government/city-council/elections)
4. [City of Dinuba Charter (Article II) -- establishes five Council districts electing one member each by plurality (no runoff), 4-year terms staggered so Districts 2, 3, and 4 elect together and Districts 1 and 5 follow four years later, and that the Mayor and Vice Mayor are selected by the Council from among its own members and serve at the Council's pleasure rather than being separately elected; contains no appointment-in-lieu-of-election provision for an unopposed seat](https://www.dinuba.org/images/docs/forms/city_charter.pdf)
5. [Wikipedia's Dinuba, California article -- confirms the city's 2020 Census population (24,563) and its raisin/packing-house agricultural economy, historically nicknamed "Raisin City"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinuba,_California)
6. [This dataset's own documented record of a dedicated, unsuccessful attempt to retrieve campaign-finance filings for all three Dinuba City Council candidates: California's Cal-Access filer search (cal-access.sos.ca.gov) returned only an empty, unrendered results shell for every query attempted this session ("Reynosa," "Prado," "Rico"), and the city's own Elections page names no online disclosure portal at all. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these three candidates, not any of their actual finances.](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Candidates/)
7. [City of Dinuba -- Kuldip Thusu's official Councilmember bio page: title "Councilmember - District 4," term expires November 2026 -- confirms his term (District/Ward 4) is the one ending this cycle, consistent with, though not a direct statement of, his choice not to refile; he does not appear among Ward 4's qualified candidates on the county's own roster](https://www.dinuba.org/kuldip-thusu)

## The rest of the ballot

Dinuba City Council, District 4 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, "Dinuba City Council, District 4 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/dinuba-council-4 (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.