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City of Garden Grove · Statewide General Election

Garden Grove City Council, District 1

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

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 holds your district's seat on Garden Grove's 6-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the citywide-elected Mayor and an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Not all six council districts are elected the same year -- only Districts 1, 3, and 4 have terms expiring in 2026. A 4-year term.

Three candidates -- William Zylla, Long Nguyen, and Roger Flanders -- are running for Garden Grove City Council District 1's open seat. Incumbent and Mayor Pro Tem George S. Brietigam III did not file for re-election. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.

This person holds District 1's seat on Garden Grove's 6-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside the citywide-elected Mayor and an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Not all six council districts are elected the same year -- only Districts 1, 3, and 4 have terms expiring in 2026. A 4-year term.

This is Garden Grove's one genuinely open council seat this cycle: no incumbent is on the ballot, and none of the three candidates has held elected office in the city before, as far as this dataset could confirm. Beyond each candidate's own filed occupation, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source could be found for any of the three despite a real, per-candidate search effort -- documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation.

William Zylla

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Retired Emergency Technician." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort (search engines, Ballotpedia, Voice of OC's own site search, and a direct guess at a campaign-site domain, which returned an authentication error rather than a live site).

Strengths

A career in emergency medical response suggests direct, practical familiarity with the city's public-safety needs.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Long Nguyen

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Urgent Care Doctor." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

A medical career suggests direct, practical familiarity with community health needs.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Roger Flanders

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Court Investigator." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

A court-system investigative background suggests direct, practical familiarity with public-safety and legal processes.

Trade-offs

No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of his priorities beyond his listed occupation.

Keep in mind

No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info.

Source review: Mixed (74/100) · 4 cited sources

Only procedural records are cited (candidate lists, results, finance filings); no source describes the candidates, so the score is capped.

Review note: No cited source describes the candidates; add descriptive coverage to lift the cap.

  • ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Garden Grove section (pages 94-99 of 188): confirms Mayor (2 qualified candidates), City Council District 1 (3), District 3 (3), and District 4 (4) as the city's four November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation
  • ggcity.org (opens in a new tab)City of Garden Grove -- Election Information page: confirms the same four offices up in the November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election ("Mayor at Large; Council District 1; Council District 3; and Council District 4") and links the city's own candidate list and incumbency-information documents
  • ggcity.org (opens in a new tab)City of Garden Grove -- 2026 Official Candidate List (the city clerk's own spreadsheet-to-PDF): every candidate's name, filing dates, ballot designation, and contact email/phone for all 12 candidates across the four contests -- independently matches the county's Proof List exactly
  • ggcity.org (opens in a new tab)City of Garden Grove -- City Council page: the full sitting 7-member roster (Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein; George S. Brietigam III, Mayor Pro Tem/District 1; Phillip Nguyen, District 2; Cindy Ngoc Tran, District 3; Joe DoVinh, District 4; Yesenia Munoz-Munoz, District 5; Ariana Arestegui, District 6) -- confirms which three districts (1, 3, 4) have terms expiring in 2026 and that District 1's incumbent, Brietigam, is not among the three qualified 2026 candidates for his own seat

Last updated August 31, 2026.