# Folsom City Council, District 3 Compare records and positions simply between Sarah Aquino or Jagadish "Jag" Nagendra for Folsom City Council, District 3 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Folsom's City Council. The council has five members. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. They also appoint the city manager who runs day to day government. The council elects its own Mayor and Vice Mayor. It picks them from its five members each year. There is no separate Mayor of Folsom contest on this ballot. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Folsom - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/folsom-council-3 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 1, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 77 out of 100 (Mixed), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Sarah Aquino** — Councilwoman/Small Businesswoman · Incumbent - **Jagadish "Jag" Nagendra** — Engineer/Project Manager A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Sarah Aquino faces challenger Jagadish "Jag" Nagendra for Folsom City Council District 3. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. This person holds District 3's seat on Folsom's 5-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. They also appoint the city manager who runs day-to-day government. Folsom's council picks its own Mayor and Vice Mayor each year. It draws both from its five district members. Voters do not choose a separate citywide mayor. The term is four years. Aquino is running on continuity and access for residents. She points to giving out her personal cell phone number. In 2021 she worked a shift as a restaurant server. She did it to draw attention to the city's service industry labor shortage. Nagendra is a first-time candidate. They run on a 35-year engineering and program management career. They also cite more than a decade of civic volunteering. Fiscal responsibility and government transparency are their central themes. ## Sarah Aquino The incumbent, whose own ballot designation is "Councilwoman/Small Businesswoman"; she served as Folsom's Mayor as of the city's own directory snapshot in January 2025 (the council elects the Mayor from among its own members each year -- see above). She says she has "worked hard to be accessible and responsive to residents," citing a 2021 shift working as a server at a local restaurant to help address a labor shortage and "lead by example." Her stated priorities are public safety, a strong local economy, and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. She was named the 2026 California Woman of the Year for Senate District 6 by State Sen. Roger Niello, cited for her years of public service and local roots. **Strengths:** A term that included service as Mayor gives her broader citywide visibility than a typical first-term councilmember, plus a published personal cell number for constituents. **Trade-offs:** A full term including as Mayor draws more scrutiny; her materials don't detail specific council votes beyond general priorities. **Keep in mind:** No Cal-Access committee could be verified for her in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Jagadish "Jag" Nagendra A Principal Engineer at the California Department of Water Resources since 2012, leading engineering and IT teams supporting the state's water and power dispatching infrastructure. Born and raised in Bangalore, India, Nagendra earned a diploma in electronics and telecommunications engineering, founded and led an industrial-automation firm there for six years, and immigrated to the U.S. in 2000, settling in Folsom. They hold Project Management Professional and Certified Change Management Professional credentials and are a Distinguished Toastmaster, with more than 15 years of civic service including Sacramento County board roles, Toastmasters leadership, the PMI Sacramento Valley chapter, and SCORE small-business mentoring; they received the Kannada Sangha of Sacramento's Person of the Year award in 2024. Their platform centers on fiscal responsibility, smart economic growth, and government transparency. **Strengths:** A long engineering-management career inside state government gives Nagendra direct familiarity with large public budgets, distinct from Aquino's small-business background. **Trade-offs:** No prior elected office; their platform is broad themes without a detailed list of specific council priorities found in this pass. **Keep in mind:** No Cal-Access committee could be verified for Nagendra in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Review notes - Jagadish "Jag" Nagendra's own campaign site for Folsom City Council District 3: his engineering career, civic-service record, and platform and Sarah Aquino's own campaign site for Folsom City Council District 3: her framing of her record as the incumbent Councilwoman/Mayor, her priorities, and her 2026 California Woman of the Year honor for Senate District 6 may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources. ## Sources 1. [Sacramento County Voter Registration & Elections — Roster of Candidates, November 3, 2026 General Election](https://elections.saccounty.gov/content/vre/us/en/campaign-services/candidate-report.html) 2. [City of Folsom — City Councilmembers directory (archived via Wayback Machine, Jan. 1, 2025 snapshot; folsom.ca.us itself 403s direct fetches): District 1 Councilmember Mike Kozlowski, District 2 Vice Mayor Justin Raithel, District 3 Mayor Sarah Aquino, District 4 Councilmember Barbara Leary, District 5 Councilmember Anna Rohrbough](https://web.archive.org/web/20250101101442/https://www.folsom.ca.us/government/city-council-and-commissions) 3. [City of Folsom — City Councilmembers directory (archived via Wayback Machine, Feb. 15, 2026 snapshot; folsom.ca.us itself 403s direct fetches): names, districts, terms ("Current Term ends November, 2026" for Kozlowski/D1, Aquino/D3, and Rohrbough/D5; "...2028" for Raithel/D2 and Leary/D4), and contact info for all five sitting councilmembers, with Raithel shown as Mayor and Rohrbough as Vice Mayor](https://web.archive.org/web/20260215202513/https://www.folsom.ca.us/government/city-council-and-commissions/city-councilmembers) 4. [Sarah Aquino's own campaign site for Folsom City Council District 3: her framing of her record as the incumbent Councilwoman/Mayor, priorities (public safety, local economy, fiscal stewardship), and her 2026 California Woman of the Year honor for Senate District 6](https://sarahaquino.com) 5. [Jagadish "Jag" Nagendra's own campaign site for Folsom City Council District 3: his engineering career (Principal Engineer, California Dept. of Water Resources; founder of an industrial-automation firm in Bangalore before immigrating to the U.S. in 2000), civic-service record, and platform](https://jagnagendra.com) ## The rest of the ballot Folsom City Council, District 3 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Folsom City Council, District 3 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/folsom-council-3 (sources last retrieved September 1, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.