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City of Gonzales · Statewide General Election

Gonzales City Council, District 4 (2-Year Term)

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 represent one district on Gonzales's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land-use decisions for this Monterey County city of about 8,600 residents. The Mayor is separately, directly elected at-large and is not part of this race.

Constance "Connie" Arellano and Henry Martinez Sr are running for Gonzales City Council District 4.

Gonzales's City Council has five members: a directly-elected, at-large Mayor plus four district Council Members. District 4 is voted only by that district's own registered voters. Unlike the city's other district seats, this one is a 2-year unexpired term rather than the ordinary 4-year cycle, per the city's own Notice of Election.

Whoever gets the most votes among District 4's own voters wins the seat outright, with no runoff. Whoever wins will need to run again in 2 years, once this seat rejoins the ordinary 4-year cycle.

Constance Arellano

Arellano's county ballot designation is "Emergency 911 Dispatcher." She filed a candidate statement with the county, though it is stored as a scanned document this dataset could not independently transcribe this pass. No other independent biography, campaign site, or news coverage of her candidacy was found.

Strengths

An "Emergency 911 Dispatcher" ballot designation, suggesting direct familiarity with the city's public-safety operations, plus a filed candidate statement (unlike most candidates in this race).

Trade-offs

The statement's content could not be independently read this pass, so her specific platform isn't detailed here.

Keep in mind

Of the two District 4 candidates, she's the only one who filed a statement -- worth reading it directly if you can access the county's scanned copy.

Henry Martinez Sr

Martinez's county ballot designation is "Landlord." No independent biography, campaign site, or news coverage of his candidacy was found this pass beyond the county's own certified candidate list, and he did not file a candidate statement.

Strengths

A "Landlord" ballot designation, suggesting direct experience with local housing issues from a property-owner's perspective.

Trade-offs

No campaign website, public statement, or news coverage was found this pass describing his specific background or platform.

Keep in mind

As a landlord, his perspective on local housing policy may differ from tenant-focused priorities -- worth asking him directly how he'd balance the two.

Source review: Strong (83/100) · 5 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • gonzalesca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Gonzales -- "Notice of Election" (published in the Salinas Valley Tribune, Jul. 1, 2026): confirms the Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Election is for exactly four offices -- Mayor (2-year term, at-large), Council Member District 1 (4-year term), Council Member District 3 (4-year term), and Council Member District 4 (2-year term, an unexpired-term seat) -- and that District 1/3/4 are each voted only by that district's own registered voters, while the Mayor is elected at-large citywide.
  • countyofmonterey.gov (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Elections -- official "Candidate List" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election, read live via a browser session (the accordion-based, JS-rendered page returns HTTP 403 to curl/WebFetch): the four expanded Gonzales entries name every qualified candidate. Mayor (Vote for One): Andrew Castillo (Disability Advocate), Elizabeth Silva (Mayor Pro Tem, candidate statement filed), Henry Laizure McDowell (Property Manager). Council District 1 (Vote for One): Delia Gutierrez (Retired County Employee), Maria Orozco (Incumbent). Council District 3 (Vote for One): Adrian Paco (Business Development Director), unopposed. Council District 4, 2 Year (Vote for One): Constance "Connie" Arellano (Emergency 911 Dispatcher, candidate statement filed), Henry Martinez Sr (Landlord).
  • gonzalesca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Gonzales -- official City Council Members page: lists Mayor Jose L. Rios's term as 2024-2026 (confirming a 2-year mayoral cycle, and that he is not seeking reelection since he does not appear among the three qualified 2026 Mayor candidates), Mayor Pro Tem Liz Silva and Council Members Lorraine Worthy and Maria Orozco each listed 2022-2026 (the three seats up this cycle), and Council Member Scott Funk listed 2024-2028 (not up).
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Gonzales, California": 2020 Census population 8,647. Used narrowly for population, not for anything about the 2026 election.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- filer searches for all seven Gonzales candidates: every query returned only a bot-detection challenge page, not usable results, the same recurring access block documented dataset-wide for this county.

Last updated September 2, 2026.