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City of Fairfax · Statewide General Election

Fairfax Town Treasurer

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On the ballot

This person would serve a 4-year term as Fairfax's directly elected Town Treasurer, one of the town's seven elected offices. The role is limited by statute -- mainly producing quarterly and other financial reports as necessary -- and paid a modest $300 monthly stipend, per the town's own account of the position. Fairfax is a Marin County town of about 7,605 residents (2020 Census).

Appointed incumbent Talia Friedman is running unopposed for a full term as Fairfax's Town Treasurer -- she is the only candidate who qualified for this seat.

Fairfax is a Marin County town of about 7,605 residents (2020 Census) with seven elected officials serving four-year terms: five Town Councilmembers, a Town Treasurer, and a Town Clerk. The Treasurer's role is limited by statute and paid a modest $300 monthly stipend -- mainly producing quarterly and other financial reports as needed on the town's fund balances and investments.

This seat became vacant when the elected Town Treasurer, Janet Garvin, resigned in December 2024. Rather than call a special election, the Town Council voted 3-2 in February 2025 to appoint Friedman to serve out the remainder of the term through December 2026; this November she is seeking a fresh four-year term.

Talia Friedman

Talia Friedman is a 15-year Fairfax resident with a background in nonprofit and small-organization financial management. She served as Treasurer for the YES Foundation from 2015 to 2018, managing an annual budget of more than $1.1 million and producing regular financial reports for its board and school district partner, and has chaired the Membership Committee for the West Point Inn Association since 2021, overseeing dues collection and financial operations. From 2021 to 2023 she worked as a Client Success Manager at Primary.Health, a role involving budget oversight for service implementations. She has volunteered as a site-council and PTA parent at Fairfax's Manor and White Hill schools, and at the Fairfax Festival and the local Food Pantry.

Strengths

Already about a year and a half into the role by Election Day, plus a specific, relevant financial-management track record -- managing a budget well over $1 million as a nonprofit treasurer.

Trade-offs

No independent news profile or 2026 campaign platform statement was found beyond her own Jan. 2025 application for the appointment and the Marin Independent Journal's coverage of that appointment.

Keep in mind

Running unopposed, she is effectively re-elected regardless of turnout -- a vote to confirm her for a full term, not a comparison between candidates. The Treasurer role itself is narrow and largely administrative.

Source review: Strong (85/100) · 12 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • marincounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Marin County Elections Department -- official "Status of local candidates for office 11/03/26" page: a table of contents of every county-administered and city/town contest in the county, listing "Town of Fairfax Member Town Council / Town Clerk / Town Treasurer" as a verified, filed contest line -- no candidate names appear on this page, only office titles. Retrieved via a Chrome browser workaround in a prior session (2026-08-29); direct WebFetch attempts this session returned HTTP 403.
  • townoffairfaxca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Fairfax -- official "November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election" page: names the qualified candidates directly for all three offices -- Town Council ("Vote for no more than two": Susan Adams, Aubrey Harmon, Cheryl Scorza, Matt Da Cunha, Doug Kelly, Larry Bragman), Town Clerk ("Deborah Benson, Bruce Ackerman"), and Town Treasurer ("Talia Friedman," unopposed, "Vote for one -- 1 candidate," no unopposed-appointment language) -- states the nomination period ran July 13-Aug. 12, 2026 (extended because incumbent Lisel Blash withdrew after filing and Richard Hamer pulled but never filed Town Clerk papers), and links directly to Resolution 2026-23. Fully reachable by direct WebFetch this session, unlike Marin County's own site.
  • storage.googleapis.com (opens in a new tab)Town of Fairfax -- July 1, 2026 Town Council staff report and Resolution No. 2026-23, "Calling for a General Municipal Election to be held on November 3, 2026, for the Election of Certain Officers": states, in the Council's own adopted words, that the election is called "for the purpose of electing two (2) Members of the Town Council, one (1) Town Treasurer, and one (1) Town Clerk, each for the full term of four (4) years" -- confirming three separate contests before the filing period even opened, with no mention anywhere of an Elections Code Section 10229 cancellation option for any office. Fetched and read in full as a PDF.
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Richard Halstead, "Slew of Marin offices up for grabs in November election" (July 27, 2026, an early-filing-period roundup): reports "In Fairfax, three municipal seats are contested this November. Council members Lisel Blash and Stephanie Hellman's terms are expiring, and town clerk Talia Freedman must also decide whether to seek another term" -- an early piece that mischaracterizes Freedman/Friedman as the Clerk (she is the appointed Treasurer); every later, dated source corrects this, so it is not carried into this dataset's content, only cited for the confirmed council-term context. Retrieved via a Google Translate proxy this session after marinij.com direct fetches were refused by this session's tooling.
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Keri Brenner, "Marin candidate list lengthens for November election" (Aug. 8, 2026, published as the initial filing deadline closed): reports "In Fairfax, council terms are expiring for Lisel Blash and Stephanie Hellman. Blash has filed to seek reelection. Susan Adams, Aubrey Harmon, Cheryl Scorza and Matt Da Cunha have filed to run for council" and "Deborah Benson has filed to run for town clerk. Talia Friedman has filed to run for town treasurer" -- the first source to correctly and specifically place Friedman in the Treasurer race. Retrieved via a Google Translate proxy this session.
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Keri Brenner, "More contenders pile into Marin's fall elections" (published Aug. 13, 2026, updated Aug. 15, 2026, after the extended filing deadline closed): the final post-deadline roster, reporting for Fairfax that "Blash filed to seek reelection but withdrew. Susan Adams, Larry Bragman, Aubrey Harmon, Doug Kelly, Cheryl Scorza and Matt Da Cunha filed to run" for council, plus "Talia Friedman filed to run for town treasurer" and "Deborah Benson and Bruce Ackerman filed to run for town clerk" -- independently confirming no further filings or withdrawals occurred in the extension window, and exactly matching the town's own official election page. Retrieved via a Google Translate proxy this session.
  • storage.googleapis.com (opens in a new tab)Town of Fairfax -- Feb. 5, 2025 Town Council staff report, "Interview and Consider Appointments for the Town Clerk and Town Treasurer Positions," and its attached applications (a public meeting-packet record, fetched and read in full as a PDF): confirms both elected positions became vacant in December 2024 following the resignations of Michele Gardner (Clerk) and Janet Garvin (Treasurer), and reproduces each applicant's own submitted application. Deborah Benson applied for both vacancies (Jan. 25, 2025): 50-plus years self-employed across roughly 90 small/medium businesses, 20-plus audits before the IRS, California Franchise Tax Board, and CDTFA, four years as partner/managing broker for a 350-property management firm, prior local campaign-finance-form experience, and having "participat[ed] in one election as a candidate" previously. Talia Friedman applied for Treasurer (Jan. 28, 2025): Treasurer for the YES Foundation 2015-2018 (a budget over $1.1 million), Membership Committee Chair for the West Point Inn Association since 2021, Client Success Manager at Primary.Health 2021-2023, a 15-year Fairfax resident, site-council/PTA volunteer at Manor and White Hill schools, and Fairfax Festival/Food Pantry volunteer work. Linda Kenton and three other candidates also applied for Clerk; none of the four Clerk applicants besides Benson is on the 2026 ballot. Personal contact details (addresses, phone numbers, personal emails) in this public record are not reproduced in this dataset's content.
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Krissy Waite, "Fairfax gets new town clerk and treasurer" (Feb. 15, 2025): reports the Town Council's Feb. 5, 2025 votes, each 3-2 (Councilmembers Frank Egger and Michael Ghiringhelli opposed both), appointing Linda Kenton as Town Clerk and Talia Friedman as Town Treasurer to fill out the current terms through December 2026, rather than calling a special election estimated at $50,000-plus; names Deborah Benson as "the alternative candidate supported by residents" for Clerk; and independently confirms a November 2024 ballot measure (Measure H) that would have made the Clerk position appointed rather than elected had failed. Retrieved via a Google Translate proxy this session.
  • townoffairfaxca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local campaign-finance check: the Town of Fairfax's own "Campaign Statements" page (unlike most NetFile jurisdictions in this dataset, this page links directly to individual filed FPPC PDFs rather than gating them behind a client-rendered portal) was fetched and read in full this pass -- every filing listed is from the 2024 election cycle; none of the three 2026 Fairfax Clerk/Treasurer candidates (Ackerman, Benson, Friedman) has a 2026-cycle filing posted there as of this retrieval. Bruce Ackerman's most recent filing on the page is his 2024 council campaign's termination-cycle Form 460 (period 10/31/24-12/17/24, fetched and read in full): calendar-year-to-date contributions of $9,499.41 and expenditures of $9,499.41 (a zero-balance termination), including a $5,314.63 self-loan he later forgave; Schedule A lists his occupation as "engineer, self-employed," independently matching his own campaign-site biography. Documents a real, dated absence for the 2026 cycle, not a blocked or inaccessible source.
  • efile.townoffairfaxca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result access check: the Town of Fairfax's own campaign-finance e-filing portal, efile.townoffairfaxca.gov, returns only a bare client-rendered single-page-application shell on direct fetch, with no server-rendered candidate or filer content -- the same access gap documented dataset-wide for NetFile-style jurisdictions. Documents an access gap, not a claim about any candidate's actual campaign finances.
  • 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 was queried directly this pass and returned only a near-empty, content-free response, consistent with the Cal-Access bot-wall documented elsewhere in this dataset. Local candidates for seats like these typically file with the town rather than the state in any case. Documents an access gap, not a claim about any candidate's actual state-level filings.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Fairfax, California": used narrowly for the fixed, dated 2020 Census population figure (7,605) and as background on a 2025 recall effort against outgoing Mayor Lisel Blash over her approval of a 243-unit apartment building -- consistent with, though not the stated reason for, her withdrawal from this cycle's council race -- not for any 2026 election content.

Last updated September 2, 2026.