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City of Guadalupe · Statewide General Election

Guadalupe City Council

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 hold one of Guadalupe's two open at-large City Council seats on the five-member Council -- the Mayor plus four Council Members, all elected citywide; Guadalupe has no council districts. A four-year term.

Exactly two candidates, Randy L. Altergott and Robert Diaz, qualified for Guadalupe's two open at-large City Council seats -- so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome.

Guadalupe's City Council has five members -- a directly elected Mayor (a separate race) plus four Council Members, all elected citywide; the city has no council districts. Council Members serve staggered four-year terms, and two of the four seats -- previously held by Christina Hernandez (who is running for Mayor instead) and Eugene Costa Jr. (who did not file for re-election) -- are up this November. Neither Altergott nor Diaz currently holds a Council seat, so both open seats drew no incumbent at all.

With no opponent beyond each other and exactly two candidates for two seats, both are effectively elected outright on November 3. The city clerk's own certified candidate table and independent Santa Maria Times reporting both confirm this is a genuine, printed on-ballot race -- not a Section 10229 cancellation-and-appointment -- with no council resolution, minutes, or notice describing any cancellation found.

Randy L. Altergott

Randy L. Altergott is a candidate for one of Guadalupe's two open at-large City Council seats. The city clerk's own candidate list prints no ballot designation for him and shows he did not file a candidate statement. This dataset found no campaign website, independent news coverage, or other public biographical material describing his occupation or platform this pass.

Strengths

None independently confirmed by this pass beyond his qualified candidacy on the city clerk's own certified list and the Santa Maria Times' independent confirmation of his unopposed status.

Trade-offs

No campaign website, filed candidate statement, or independent news coverage was found describing his background or platform.

Keep in mind

This is a documented sourcing gap, not a claim that he lacks a platform -- search tools available this session (see the shard-level note) were degraded rather than genuinely exhausted, so a stronger search closer to November could turn up more.

Robert Diaz

Robert Diaz is a candidate for one of Guadalupe's two open at-large City Council seats. The city clerk's own candidate list prints no ballot designation for him but shows he did file a candidate statement -- unlike Altergott. No text of that statement was found published online this pass, and this dataset found no campaign website or independent news coverage describing his occupation or platform beyond it.

Strengths

A candidate statement filed with the city clerk, unlike Altergott -- though its actual text could not be located online this pass.

Trade-offs

No campaign website or independent news coverage was found describing his background or platform, and the filed statement's content remains a documented gap.

Keep in mind

This is a documented sourcing gap, not a claim that he lacks a platform -- his filed statement may be available directly from the city clerk's office even though it was not reachable online this pass.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 6 cited sources

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

  • cityofguadalupe.org (opens in a new tab)City of Guadalupe City Clerk -- "November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election" page: states the three offices up (Mayor -- 2-year term; Council Member 1 and Council Member 2 -- 4-year terms; City Treasurer -- 4-year term), the candidate filing period (July 13 - August 7, 2026), and its own "2026 QUALIFIED CANDIDATES" table naming all five candidates by office, printed ballot designation, and whether each filed a candidate statement -- Christina Hernandez (Mayor, "District Representative"), Ariston D. Julian (Mayor, none), Randy L. Altergott (Council Member, none), Robert Diaz (Council Member, none, statement filed), Charlene Estabillo (Treasurer, none)
  • cityofguadalupe.org (opens in a new tab)City of Guadalupe -- "Elected Officials" page: states plainly the Council is a Mayor plus four Council Members, "each City Council member represents the City at large, there are no districts," and that the Mayor serves a two-year term and Council Members a four-year term on a staggered, three-seats-every-two-years cycle; names the sitting Council with terms -- Ariston Julian (Mayor, 2024-2026), Christina Hernandez (Mayor Pro Tem, 2022-2026), Amelia M. Villegas (Councilmember, 2024-2028), Whitney Furness (Councilmember, 2024-2028), Eugene Costa Jr. (Councilmember, 2022-2026) -- and carries each sitting official's own self-authored biography, including Julian's USAF service, Fresno State master's degree, and career at Guadalupe Community Health Centers Inc., and Hernandez's nonprofit work and Guadalupe Lions Club/Comite chair roles
  • santamariatimes.com (opens in a new tab)Santa Maria Times -- "Familiar faces, old rivalries mark SB North County's November ballot" (Aug. 28, 2026 update; citing the county's own qualified-candidate lists after the Aug. 7 filing deadline): "Longtime Guadalupe Mayor Ariston D. Julian, who ran essentially unopposed in 2022 and received 94.5% of the vote, faces City Councilmember Christina Hernandez. Robert Diaz and Randy L. Altergott, unopposed, are the only candidates for the two City Council seats. The treasurer's race also is uncontested, with Charlene Estabillo as the only qualified candidate. She was appointed to the seat after longtime Treasurer Anna Marie Santillan-Michaud died on June 3, 2025... and is now seeking a full term unopposed"
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Guadalupe, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population (8,057) and independent corroboration that Ariston Julian is the sitting Mayor -- does not cover the 2026 election
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- a direct fetch of the filer-search page returned an Incapsula bot-challenge page, and this session's separate web-fetch tool returned a blank result page, for each of the five candidates' names queried. Cal-Access's own scope covers only state-level campaign committees in any case, not local city races. Documents an inability to reach a working state financial-disclosure search for any of the five candidates, not a claim about any candidate's actual finances
  • cityofguadalupe.org (opens in a new tab)City of Guadalupe -- "Documents Archive" page, searched in full across every listed category (Bid Packages, Council Agendas, Council Minutes, Employment, Miscellaneous Documents, Oversight Board Agendas, Recreation Commission Agendas, Water Department Documents): no "Campaign Statements" category exists and no filed FPPC disclosure for any of the five 2026 candidates is posted online, unlike Buellton's city site. Documents an absence of a reachable local financial-disclosure filing for any candidate in this shard, not a claim about any candidate's actual finances

Last updated September 1, 2026.