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City of Etna · Statewide General Election

Etna City Council

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 would hold one of three open seats on Etna's 5-member City Council for a 4-year term (expiring 2030): city ordinances, the budget, and local land use in a town of 678 people (2020 Census), at the north end of Scott Valley in Siskiyou County. Etna (incorporated 1878) doesn't directly elect a Mayor -- no Etna Mayor's race appears anywhere on the county's own Nov. 2026 election documents, only City Council seats -- so the Mayor and Mayor Pro-Tem titles are held by two of the five sitting Council Members. Cliff Munson currently holds the Mayor title (his own seat isn't up this cycle) and Brandon Fawaz is Mayor Pro-Tem, one of the three incumbents on this ballot.

Three of Etna's five City Council seats are up this cycle, and four candidates filed for them: incumbents John Stacher, Brandon Fawaz, and Jason Deppen, plus challenger Mitch Trost. With four candidates for three seats, this is a genuinely contested race that goes to the ballot -- not a case where the city could appoint winners and skip the election.

This person would hold one of Etna's five City Council seats for a 4-year term (expiring 2030): city ordinances, the budget, and local land use in a town of 678 people (2020 Census), at the north end of Scott Valley in Siskiyou County. Etna (incorporated 1878) doesn't directly elect a Mayor -- no Etna Mayor's race appears anywhere on the county's own Nov. 2026 election documents, only City Council seats -- so the Mayor and Mayor Pro-Tem titles are held by two of the five sitting Council Members. Cliff Munson currently holds the Mayor title (his own seat isn't up this cycle) and Brandon Fawaz is Mayor Pro-Tem, one of the three incumbents on this ballot.

A second, separate Etna Council seat -- short-term, 2 years, currently held by appointed incumbent Matthew Eastlick -- is also up this cycle per the City's own Notice of Municipal Election ('one short term City Council Member for a 2-year term ending in 2028'). But no candidate for that seat, not even Eastlick himself, appears anywhere on the county's certified Final Candidate List, meaning nobody filed for it by the Aug. 7, 2026 deadline. That's consistent with a Section 10229 cancellation-to-appointment for that one seat -- California law lets a city cancel an election and fill an under-filled seat by appointment instead. It isn't shown here as a contest, since no candidate roster exists for it to show.

John Stacher

John Stacher is a sitting Etna Councilmember seeking reelection to a new 4-year term. He's confirmed as a current Councilmember by the City's own Council roster page and by both of Siskiyou County's certified election documents, which list him as an incumbent candidate. No further independent record of his occupation, background, or platform was found in this pass -- the City's site lists Council members by name and title only, with no linked biography, and no news coverage of his 2026 candidacy or Council record turned up in a genuine search of local outlets or the open web.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent with current Council experience, confirmed by both the City's own roster page and the County's certified election documents.

Trade-offs

No independent record of his occupation, platform, or voting record was found in this pass -- his incumbency is confirmed, but nothing else about him is.

Keep in mind

The absence of coverage reflects a small town's thin local-news environment, not anything unusual about this candidate -- all four candidates in this race have an equally bare public record beyond incumbency status.

Brandon Fawaz

Brandon Fawaz is a sitting Etna Councilmember seeking reelection to a new 4-year term. The City's own Council roster page identifies him specifically as Mayor Pro-Tem, one of the two Council-selected leadership titles (alongside Mayor) held by members of the five-person body. No further independent record of his occupation, background, or platform for this 2026 candidacy was found in this pass -- no linked biography on the City's site, and no news coverage of his 2026 run turned up in a genuine search of local outlets or the open web.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent and current Mayor Pro-Tem, confirmed by the City's own Council roster page.

Trade-offs

No independent record of his occupation, platform, or voting record beyond his confirmed Council titles was found in this pass.

Keep in mind

Holding the Mayor Pro-Tem title reflects a selection made by his fellow Councilmembers, not a separate vote by Etna residents -- it doesn't by itself say anything about his platform for this race.

Jason Deppen

Jason Deppen is a sitting Etna Councilmember seeking reelection to a new 4-year term, confirmed as a current Councilmember by the City's own Council roster page and named an incumbent candidate on the county's certified Final Candidate List. (The county's companion 'List of Local Offices' document spells his first name 'Samuel' rather than 'Jason' -- this dataset uses the Final Candidate List's own name, the higher-authority source for the certified ballot name.) No further independent record of his occupation, background, or platform was found in this pass -- no linked biography on the City's site, and no news coverage of his 2026 candidacy turned up in a genuine search of local outlets or the open web.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent with current Council experience, confirmed by both the City's own roster page and the County's certified election documents.

Trade-offs

No independent record of his occupation, platform, or voting record was found in this pass -- his incumbency is confirmed, but nothing else about him is.

Keep in mind

The county's two election documents disagree on his first name (Jason vs. Samuel); this dataset follows the certified candidate list, the source that carries the actual ballot name.

Mitch Trost

Mitch Trost is a non-incumbent candidate for Etna City Council, filing under the ballot designation "Retired Bus Driver" per the county's certified Final Candidate List. No further occupation detail, platform, or civic background was found for him in this pass -- no coverage of his candidacy turned up in local news or a general web search, and he has no listed presence on the City's own website.

Strengths

None independently confirmed beyond his own filed ballot designation.

Trade-offs

No platform, news coverage, or civic-background record was found for his 2026 run beyond that designation.

Keep in mind

A bare public record is common for a first-time small-town council challenger -- not itself a red flag, just a gap in what's currently verifiable.

Candidate background for this contest is genuinely thin across all four names, not lopsided: beyond the three incumbents' confirmed Council status, none of the four has an independently verifiable occupation, platform, or civic record in this pass. Etna is a town of 678 people with no dedicated local newspaper of its own; general web and news searches for each candidate by name turned up nothing specific to this 2026 race for any of them. This reflects the genuinely small scale of local press attention this race draws, not anything being withheld.

Source review: Strong (82/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • siskiyoucounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Siskiyou County -- "Final Siskiyou County Candidate List -- Local Offices Going to Election -- November 3, 2026, General Election -- As of 08/12/2026": names "City of Etna, City Council -- Full Term -- Vote for 3" -- John Stacher, Brandon Fawaz, and Jason Deppen (each "Incumbent"), and Mitch Trost ("Retired Bus Driver") -- read directly from the extracted PDF text, not a summary. No separate Etna short-term Council seat appears here, meaning no candidate filed for it.
  • siskiyoucounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Siskiyou County -- "List of Local Offices to be Elected -- November 3, 2026, General Election": lists "City of Etna Council Member, Full-Term -- 3 positions" (incumbents Samuel Deppen, Brandon Fawaz, John Stacher) and, separately, "City of Etna Council Member, Short-Term -- 1 position" (incumbent Matthew Eastlick) -- confirms the 4-year full-term window (12/4/26-12/6/30) and that a second, short-term seat exists. Spells the third incumbent's first name "Samuel" rather than "Jason"; this dataset uses the Final Candidate List's own spelling, the higher-authority source for the certified ballot name.
  • etnaca.com (opens in a new tab)City of Etna -- official website home page: City Clerk department, contact information, and a link to the City's own Notice of Municipal Election.
  • etnaca.com (opens in a new tab)City of Etna -- "City Council" page: the sitting five-member Council -- Mayor Cliff Munson (2020-2028), Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Fawaz (2022-2026), and Councilmembers Matt Eastlick (2025-2026), John Stacher (2022-2026), and Jason Deppen (2022-2026) -- confirming Stacher's, Fawaz's, and Deppen's incumbency and that Fawaz currently holds the Mayor Pro-Tem title.
  • etnaca.com (opens in a new tab)City of Etna -- "Notice of Municipal Election, City of Etna": "electing three City Council Members for four-year terms ending in 2030 and one short term City Council Member for a 2-year term ending in 2028" -- confirms both the 3-seat full-term race built here and the separate 1-seat short-term race that drew no candidate.
  • siskiyoucounty.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance check: Siskiyou County has no NetFile-style online e-filing portal for local candidates; the County's own Campaign Statements page describes only its AB 2151 paper-filing disclosure practice (statements posted within 72 hours of filing) and lists no filing for John Stacher, Brandon Fawaz, Jason Deppen, or Mitch Trost as of this pass's retrieval.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- Etna, California: incorporation year (March 13, 1878) and 2020 Census population (678), used narrowly for these two descriptive facts only.

Last updated September 2, 2026.