Skip to main content

City of Eureka · Statewide General Election

Eureka City Council, Ward 5

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 Eureka's five City Council seats, elected by the voters of Ward 5 to a 4-year term. Eureka (2020 population 26,512) is the county seat of Humboldt County and runs under a council-manager government: the five-member Council sets policy, adopts the budget, and approves contracts; a City Manager runs day-to-day operations. The Mayor, elected separately and citywide, presides over Council meetings but doesn't sit as a sixth ward vote.

An open seat: sitting Ward 5 Councilmember Renee Contreras-DeLoach isn't on this cycle's ballot. Jeff Leonard, who served on the Eureka City Council from 2002 to 2010, faces Kathy (Kathleen) Herrera for the seat.

Eureka (2020 Census population 26,512) is the county seat of Humboldt County and runs under a council-manager government: a five-member City Council, elected one per ward to 4-year terms, sets policy and adopts the budget, while a City Manager runs day-to-day operations. The separately elected Mayor presides over Council meetings but doesn't sit as a sixth ward vote.

The two candidates are documented unevenly, and this dataset says so plainly rather than papering over it: Leonard answered multiple voter questions through Lost Coast Outpost's LoCOElections tool and runs a detailed campaign website laying out a specific record from his prior council term. Herrera answered one LoCO question in her own words -- real, substantive, and the only independently locatable material on her candidacy beyond her filed occupation, but far thinner than Leonard's documented record.

Jeff Leonard

Jeff Leonard worked for the state of California more than 20 years and served on the Eureka City Council from 2002 to 2010; he says he considered running for this seat four years ago but held off, saying "I'm ready now." He's lived in Eureka most of his life and raised two children there with his partner. His campaign, "Expect More, Eureka!," points to a specific record from his prior term: a founding member of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, leading fundraising that completed the Eureka Skate Park in 2009, a KaBoom! grant for new Hammond Park playground equipment, PG&E funding for the Elk River Trail, and, with RCEA, a $2.4 million federal grant plus solar panels and EV charging at the Fisherman's Terminal building. His current platform includes attracting business and jobs, downtown residential development, an "accountable, compassionate" approach to homeless encampments, and completing the Bay to Zoo Trail; he also defends the city's CalPERS retirement contributions for its roughly 200 full-time employees as necessary and locally beneficial, and criticizes a federal decision to redirect a $400 million grant away from an offshore-wind project he says would have brought major private-sector jobs to Humboldt.

Strengths

The most concrete, checkable civic record of any candidate built for Eureka this cycle -- named grants, named completed projects, and specific dates from an actual prior council term.

Trade-offs

There's a roughly sixteen-year gap between that prior council service (ending 2010) and this run; by his own account he considered running four years earlier and held off.

Keep in mind

His criticism of the federal government's redirection of offshore-wind funding is his own political framing of a real, larger funding decision, not a settled city-level fact -- worth weighing as his view of it.

Kathy Herrera

Kathy Herrera (listed as Kathleen Herrera on Lost Coast Outpost's own candidate page) is retired. In her one substantive on-record answer, she describes Eureka as fundamentally a "small city" centered on Old Town and the Waterfront, says the city's tourism appeal is "good but could always be better," and suggests Eureka "may need a large employer" along with grants -- rather than loans -- to help small businesses that are starting out or weathering a hard stretch. She credits the volunteers behind the Old Town Friday Night Market, the Thursday summer music series, and Arts Alive.

Strengths

Her one substantive answer names a specific, distinctive policy preference -- grants over loans for struggling small businesses -- rather than only generalities.

Trade-offs

This dataset located no campaign website, social media, or independent press coverage of her beyond that one answer and her filed occupation -- thinner than Leonard's documented record.

Keep in mind

With a genuinely open seat and only one side of the race extensively documented, voters may want to seek out Herrera directly -- at a candidate forum or by contacting her campaign -- before deciding, rather than rely on this dataset's necessarily thinner picture of her.

Source review: Strong (82/100) · 7 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: Jeff Leonard's own 2026 campaign website ("Expect More, Eureka!"), its About and "My Record" pages: he worked for the state of California more than 20 years, served on the Eureka City Council from 2002 to 2010, and has lived in Eureka most of his life, raising two children there with his partner Cindy. His self-described prior record: a founding member of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority; led fundraising that completed the Eureka Skate Park in 2009; secured a $50,000 KaBoom! grant for new Hammond Park playground equipment in 2008; secured $250,000 in PG&E funding for the Elk River Trail; served on the Sequoia Park Zoo Foundation board; helped bring the "New Directions" program to Eureka to address encampments; and, with RCEA, helped secure a $2.4 million EDA grant plus solar panels and EV charging at the Fisherman's Terminal building. Self-published, self-description attributed in text, not an independent evaluation of it. may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "Qualified Candidate List - City Contests": the certified, signature-qualified roster for Eureka's Mayor and Council Wards 1, 3, and 5, each candidate's filed occupation/designation, and incumbency.
  • humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "2026 [General Election] Candidate Openings" (7-page pre-filing PDF): confirms Ferndale Mayor is a 1-seat, 2-year term (2027-2029) and Ferndale City Council is a 2-seat, 4-year term (2027-2031); separately confirms Eureka's four seat openings (Mayor plus Council Wards 1, 3, and 5, each a 4-year term), with Wards 2 and 4 not up this cycle.
  • eurekaca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Eureka -- its own "Meet the Mayor and Council" page: Kim Bergel as Mayor, G Mario Fernandez as Ward 3 Councilmember, and Renee Contreras-DeLoach (not a 2026 candidate) as sitting Ward 5 Councilmember, confirming that race is an open seat.
  • lostcoastoutpost.com (opens in a new tab)Lost Coast Outpost, LoCOElections -- Kathy (Kathleen) Herrera's candidate page and her one substantive answer, on Eureka's small-city identity and small-business support.
  • lostcoastoutpost.com (opens in a new tab)Lost Coast Outpost, LoCOElections -- Jeff Leonard's candidate page and his direct answers on running now versus four years ago, and on city employee retirement costs versus RCEA's clean-energy investments.
  • jeffleonardforcouncil.org (opens in a new tab)Jeff Leonard's own 2026 campaign website, its About and "My Record" pages: his prior 2002-2010 Eureka City Council term and a named record of civic projects. Self-published, attributed in text.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result access check: California's statewide Cal-Access campaign-finance filer/candidate search returned no usable content on direct fetch for any of the seven built Eureka candidates; no City of Eureka campaign-finance/FPPC-filings page could be located this pass either.

Last updated September 2, 2026.