Skip to main content

City of Ferndale · Statewide General Election

City of Ferndale — Mayor

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 serve as Ferndale's separately, directly elected Mayor -- not chosen by the City Council from among its own members. Ferndale (2020 population 1,398, incorporated Aug. 28, 1893) is a general-law city under a council-manager government with a four-member City Council serving 4-year terms alongside this separately elected Mayor, who serves a shorter 2-year term. Voters kept the office directly elected in a 2004 ballot measure that would have had the Council appoint the Mayor from among its own members instead -- defeated with 78.8% opposed.

Only one candidate qualified for Ferndale's Mayor race: incumbent Randall "Randy" Cady, first elected in 2022, runs for a new 2-year term with no opponent. This contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome.

Ferndale is one of the smaller California cities with an independently, directly elected Mayor, rather than one chosen by the City Council from among its own members. It's a general-law city (2020 population 1,398, incorporated Aug. 28, 1893) under a council-manager government, with a four-member City Council serving 4-year terms alongside this separately elected Mayor, who serves a shorter 2-year term. Voters kept the office directly elected in a 2004 ballot measure that would have had the Council appoint the Mayor from among its own members instead -- defeated with 78.8% opposed.

With no opponent, the useful question is whether anything unusual explains the empty field rather than who to choose. Nothing does: Humboldt County's own certified "Qualified Candidate List" for city contests lists Cady in the same format used for every genuinely contested candidate elsewhere in the same document, and Ferndale's City Council took no action to cancel the election and appoint him under Elections Code Section 10229 -- no such item appears on any council meeting agenda through Aug. 19, 2026, the council's first regular meeting after the county's Aug. 12 extended filing deadline. This is a genuine on-ballot, uncontested race, not an appointment in lieu of an election.

Randall Cady

Randall (Randy) Cady is Ferndale's sitting Mayor, first elected in 2022 to a term the city's own City Council roster lists as expiring in 2026, and now runs unopposed for a new 2-year term. Beyond his current officeholding, this dataset found no independently verifiable biography, campaign website, or candidate statement for him this cycle: Humboldt County's own qualified-candidate filing lists no occupation, email, or website for him beyond his "Incumbent" designation, and no coverage of his 2026 candidacy specifically was found this pass -- direct site searches of the Ferndale Enterprise (the city's own local paper) and Lost Coast Outpost turned up nothing on point, and general web search returned only unrelated results. What's here is limited to what the city's and county's own official records confirm: that he holds the office and is the only person who filed to keep it.

Strengths

Already the sitting Mayor, so a vote here continues a known status quo rather than installing someone new.

Trade-offs

Running unopposed, his term faces no organized counter-argument, and this dataset found no platform or priorities for a second term beyond his continued candidacy.

Keep in mind

This is a small city (2020 population 1,398), and this dataset found no 2026 election coverage from Ferndale's own local paper or nearby outlets -- a documented sourcing gap common to small local races, not a sign anything is being withheld.

Source review: Strong (85/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "Qualified Candidate List - City Contests" (3-page PDF, fetched directly and text-extracted locally with pypdf): names Randall Cady as the sole qualified candidate for Ferndale City Mayor, and Stephen Avis, Brent Chase, and incumbent Jennifer Fisk-Becker as the three qualified candidates for the two Ferndale City Councilmember seats.
  • 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.
  • ci.ferndale.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Ferndale -- official "Notice of Municipal Election" for November 3, 2026: confirms one Mayor seat ("Number to be elected: One (1)," "Full Term for Two (2) years") and two City Council seats (4-year terms), and the July 13-Aug. 6, 2026 filing period (extended to Aug. 12 for any office a sitting incumbent did not refile for). Contains no language referencing Elections Code Section 10229 or any cancellation-and-appointment procedure.
  • ci.ferndale.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Ferndale -- its own City Council department page: lists Mayor Randy Cady ("Elected: 2022, Term Expires: 2026") alongside the four sitting Councilmembers.
  • ci.ferndale.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Ferndale -- City Council regular meeting agenda packet, Aug. 19, 2026 (the council's first regular meeting after the county's Aug. 12 extended candidate-filing deadline): its full 17-item agenda, roll call through adjournment, carries no election-cancellation, canvass-of-results, or Elections Code Section 10229 appointment item of any kind.
  • ci.ferndale.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Ferndale -- its own City Clerk department page: describes the Clerk as the city's own filing officer for campaign and conflict-of-interest disclosure statements; links no NetFile portal or other online index of actual filings.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Ferndale, California": used narrowly for the fixed, dated 2020 Census population figure (1,398), the Aug. 28, 1893 incorporation date, and the 2004 ballot measure (defeated, 78.8% against) that would have replaced the directly elected Mayor with a council-selected one; does not cover the 2026 election.

Last updated September 2, 2026.