# Huron City Council Compare records and positions simply between Roberto C. Pimentel, Joel Mora, Mike A. Morales, or David Mercado for Huron City Council at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of three City Council seats in Huron. The term is four years. Council members vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. Huron's Mayor is directly elected separately, to a two-year term. The Mayor's seat is not up this cycle. - Jurisdiction: City of Huron - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Seats: 3 - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/huron-council - 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: 90 out of 100 (Very strong), across 7 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Roberto C. Pimentel** — Teacher · Incumbent - **Joel Mora** — Administrative Coordinator - **Mike A. Morales** — Incumbent - **David Mercado** — Operation Manager A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Four candidates are running for three of Huron's City Council seats on November 3: incumbents Roberto Pimentel and Mike Morales are both seeking another term, alongside challengers Joel Mora and David Mercado, for the seat left open by incumbent Arely Arellano not filing for reelection. This person would hold one of three City Council seats up this cycle in Huron. Huron is a Fresno County farmworker city in the western San Joaquin Valley. About 6,200 people live there. The city was incorporated on May 3, 1951. Councilmembers vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. They work with the city's appointed City Manager, Virginia Penaloza. She also oversees the City Clerk function. Huron has no separately elected City Clerk or City Treasurer. The term is four years. Huron's Mayor, Rey Leon, is elected at-large to a separate 2-year term. That seat is not up this cycle. Roberto Pimentel, one of this contest's candidates, serves as Mayor Pro-Tem. The Council assigns that title. It is not a separately elected office. Huron's fourth Council seat is vacant, per Fresno County's own filing documents. It was up separately this cycle as a "Short Term" contest. That contest would fill the balance of the seat's unexpired term. Its one filer is flagged "Not Qualified" in the county's own record. That leaves zero qualified candidates, so no contest is built for that seat. One unconfirmed reading traces the vacancy to former Councilmember Hilda R. Plasencia's seat. Four names appear on the ballot for three seats. This is a plurality race decided in one round. The three highest vote-getters win outright. Two candidates, Pimentel and Morales, are sitting incumbents, per Fresno County's own listing. A third incumbent, Arely Arellano, did not file for reelection. That left her seat open. No independent reporting compares the four candidates or covers the race. ## Roberto C. Pimentel An incumbent seeking another term; Pimentel's filed ballot designation is "Teacher." Fresno County's own records confirm they hold their current seat by direct election, not appointment, and the City of Huron's own City Council page names them the sitting Mayor Pro-Tem. This dataset found no further independent biographical detail (where they teach, background, or platform) for them. **Strengths:** A term already served on the Council, plus current selection by their colleagues as Mayor Pro-Tem, confirmed by the city's City Council page and the county's incumbent-of-record listing. **Trade-offs:** This dataset found no independent reporting or biography evaluating their record -- where they teach, their background, and their platform beyond the "Teacher" designation are all unconfirmed here. **Keep in mind:** No candidate statement was filed for this race per the county's own record, and no campaign site or social-media presence could be found for them this session. ## Mike A. Morales An incumbent seeking another term; Morales's filed ballot designation is simply "Incumbent," with no stated occupation. Fresno County's own records confirm they hold their current seat by direct election, not appointment. This dataset found no independent biographical detail (occupation, background, or platform) for them beyond the county's own filing. **Strengths:** A term already served on the Council, confirmed by the county's own incumbent-of-record listing and the city's own City Council page. **Trade-offs:** This dataset found no independent reporting or biography evaluating their record -- occupation, background, and platform are all unconfirmed here. **Keep in mind:** No candidate statement was filed for this race per the county's own record, and no campaign site or social-media presence could be found for them this session. ## Joel Mora A first-time candidate for the seat left open by Arely Arellano not filing for reelection; Mora's filed ballot designation is "Administrative Coordinator." This dataset found no independent biographical detail (where they work, background, or platform) for them beyond the county's own candidate filing. **Strengths:** A stated occupation (administrative coordinator) that could bring organizational experience to the Council, though this dataset could not independently verify or expand on it. **Trade-offs:** No campaign materials, endorsements, or independent coverage were found for them. **Keep in mind:** As a first-time candidate, Mora has no council voting record to evaluate. ## David Mercado A first-time candidate for the seat left open by Arely Arellano not filing for reelection; Mercado's filed ballot designation is "Operation Manager" (as filed with the county). This dataset found no independent biographical detail (what operation they manage, background, or platform) for them beyond the county's own candidate filing. **Strengths:** A stated occupation (operations management) that could bring organizational experience to the Council, though this dataset could not independently verify or expand on it. **Trade-offs:** No campaign materials, endorsements, or independent coverage were found for them. **Keep in mind:** As a first-time candidate, Mercado has no council voting record to evaluate. They qualified last among the four candidates this cycle, per the county's own filing dates. ## Sources 1. [Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters -- CFMR009 "Candidate List" for the Nov. 3, 2026 Consolidated Statewide General Election (printed 8/12/2026 5:37:13PM, post-filing-deadline): lists Huron's two city-section contests -- City Council (5085), Vote For 3, with Roberto C. Pimentel ("Teacher"), Mike A. Morales ("Incumbent"), Joel Mora ("Administrative Coordinator"), and David Mercado ("Operation Manager") as the four qualified candidates; and City Council Short Term (5088), Vote For 1, with Eduardo Lopez Mendoza ("Business Owner") flagged Not Qualified](https://www2.fresnocountyca.gov/2850/post/2026NOV/CandidateList.pdf) 2. [Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters -- CFMR001 "Contest/Candidate Proof List," filtered to Contests on Ballot, for the Nov. 3, 2026 election (printed 8/18/2026 8:39:55AM): independently confirms Huron City Council (5085) as ON BALLOT, Vote For 3, 4 qualified of 4 filed, naming Roberto Pimentel, Mike A. Morales, and Arely Maribel Arellano as incumbents-of-record, each "Elected" (not appointed); and confirms City Council Short Term (5088) as ON BALLOT, Vote For 1, but with 1 candidate filed and 0 qualified -- no "Candidate(s):" line appears for this contest, unlike every other contest in the document -- and names the seat's incumbent-of-record as "Vacant / Vacated"](https://www2.fresnocountyca.gov/2850/post/2026NOV/Contests%20on%20Ballot%20with%20Qualified%20Candidates.pdf) 3. [The City of Huron's own City Council page: names Mayor Rey Leon (directly elected at-large, 2-year term), Mayor Pro-Tem Roberto Pimentel, and Councilmembers Arely Arellano and Mike Morales as the four sitting officials -- no fourth Councilmember is named. States the generic rule that "four Council members serve four-year staggered terms, with two positions up for election every two years"](https://huronca.gov/city-council/) 4. [The City of Huron's own "Notice of City Council Reorganization," dated Dec. 15, 2022, following a Dec. 14, 2022 special meeting -- names all five then-elected offices and each one's term-expiration date: Rey Leon (Mayor, expires Dec. 2024), Roberto C. Pimentel, Arely Arellano, and Mike A. Morales (Councilmembers, each expires Dec. 2026), and Hilda R. Plasencia (Councilmember, expires Dec. 2024). A scanned image PDF with no extractable text layer; read via an image render this session](https://huronca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/CITY-COUNCIL-REORGANIZATION.pdf) 5. [The City of Huron's own Administration page: names Virginia Penaloza as City Manager, "responsible for making policy recommendations to the City Council and implementing City Council policy directives," and places the City Clerk function inside the City Manager's office rather than as a separately elected office; no City Treasurer is named](https://huronca.gov/administration/) 6. [Wikipedia's Huron, California article: population 6,206 (2020 census), 95.7% Hispanic or Latino -- the article notes Huron had the highest such share of any U.S. city per the 2000 census; names Rey Leon as Mayor. States no council size or term-length detail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huron,_California) 7. [A negative-result campaign-finance search: California's Cal-Access campaign-finance search returned only an empty, unrenderable page for a direct query against each of Huron's four 2026 City Council candidates this session, the same recurring bot-detection failure mode already documented elsewhere in this dataset (e.g. Kingsburg, Danville, Coalinga, Firebaugh). Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for this contest, not any candidate's actual finances](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Candidates/list.aspx) ## The rest of the ballot Huron City Council 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, "Huron City Council — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/huron-council (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.