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El Segundo City Council

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City of El Segundo

El Segundo City Council

This person holds one of El Segundo's five at-large City Council seats. They vote on the city budget, zoning, development rules, and city laws. The term is four years. The council does not elect its mayor directly. Members choose one of their own to be mayor each year. They also choose a mayor pro tem. The mayor runs meetings but gets only one vote, like every other member.

Three candidates are running for El Segundo's two open City Council seats on November 3. Two are incumbents, Chris Pimentel, the city's mayor, and Ryan Baldino, the mayor pro tem. Both are seeking another term. Their opponent is John Pickhaver, a community organizer. Pickhaver lost a bid for one of three seats in 2024. He is running again.

El Segundo's council is five members, all elected citywide rather than by district, on staggered 4-year terms; the other three seats aren't up this cycle. The council chooses one of its own to serve as mayor and mayor pro tem each year, so voters elect a councilmember, not a mayor directly. Whoever wins holds the seat for four years, setting the budget, zoning, and city ordinances for a small, commercially dense city of roughly 17,000 people wedged between LAX and the coast, with an aerospace-and-tech corporate base a city-cited economic-development effort calls the densest hard-tech cluster in Southern California.

Both incumbents are campaigning on continuity: Pimentel's pitch is a deliberate focus on core city services over regional fights, Baldino's is finishing what his term started, from the city budget to the fight over odors from a neighboring wastewater plant. Pickhaver, running again after 2024, argues the council doesn't reflect the city's own diversity and wants more outside scrutiny of industrial operators. With two seats and three names on the ballot, this is a plurality race decided in one round — weigh whether you want continuity from both incumbents, or a change on at least one seat.

Chris Pimentel

Chris Pimentel is a technology executive and former Marine Corps infantry officer. He has served on the council since 2018 and as mayor since 2024. He calls his approach "staying in our lane." That means keeping city government focused on fast permitting, predictable rules, and core services. He wants to avoid regional or national fights. A nonprofit civic media outlet credits him with resolving a roughly half-billion-dollar pension liability. He did it through renegotiated labor deals and bond financing.

Ryan W. Baldino

Ryan Baldino is a construction and real estate litigation attorney. He has served on the council since 2022. He has been mayor pro tem since December 2024. Before that, he spent 14 years on the city's Planning Commission. He is running on balancing the city budget. He wants to reinvest in parks and the long-shuttered Plunge swim stadium. He is also continuing the fight over odors from the Hyperion water reclamation plant. He led the council effort behind AB 1216, a 2023 state law. That law requires real-time, public air quality monitoring at Hyperion's fence line.

John Pickhaver

John Pickhaver is a community organizer. He chairs the city's Arts and Culture Committee. He lost a bid for one of three council seats in 2024. He is running again. He wants a council that better reflects the city's diversity. He is also campaigning on housing and more scrutiny of industrial operators. That includes a data center proposal he helped organize opposition to. He says he would be the only registered Democrat on the council if elected. The council is officially nonpartisan.

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

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