Skip to main content

City of La Palma · Statewide General Election

La Palma City Council, District 2

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 La Palma's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. La Palma's Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem are chosen annually by the council from among its own members rather than directly elected, so there's no separate Mayor's race on this ballot. Only Districts 2 and 4 have terms expiring this cycle. A 4-year term.

Sitting Mayor Pro Tem Nitesh P. Patel is running against Andrew Kim for La Palma City Council District 2. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.

This person holds District 2's seat on La Palma's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. La Palma's Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem are chosen annually by the council from among its own members rather than directly elected, so there's no separate Mayor's race on this ballot. Only Districts 2 and 4 have terms expiring this cycle. A 4-year term.

Patel is a sitting councilmember and the current Mayor Pro Tem, per his own ballot designation and Wikipedia's current La Palma officeholder roster. But the county's own record leaves this contest's Incumbent(s) field 'No Incumbent Elected' rather than naming him -- this dataset does not assert he is District 2's incumbent, even though he currently sits on the council, consistent with the same pattern already documented for San Clemente's District 2 race and Westminster's Mayor's race. Beyond each candidate's filed occupation, no independent profile, platform statement, or news coverage was found for either candidate in this pass despite a real, time-boxed search effort -- documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation.

Andrew Kim

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Public Safety Manager." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing his background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort.

Strengths

A public-safety management background, which could be directly relevant to a council seat's oversight of police, fire, and emergency-services budgets.

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, and no record of prior elected office was found.

Keep in mind

CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info.

Nitesh P. Patel

A sitting La Palma councilmember and the current Mayor Pro Tem, per his own filed ballot designation ("Council Member, City of La Palma") and independently confirmed by Wikipedia's current officeholder roster. Beyond that confirmed current role, no independent profile, platform statement, campaign site, or news coverage describing his council record or platform for this race could be found in this pass.

Strengths

Sitting-councilmember experience plus the Mayor Pro Tem post, so a known quantity to the extent his prior council service is on the public record, even without a detailed record on hand here.

Trade-offs

No independently sourced platform for this campaign was found in this pass -- only that he holds a council seat, not what he intends for District 2 specifically.

Keep in mind

CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info.

Source review: Strong (82/100) · 2 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with a narrow source base.

  • ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of La Palma section (pages 126-128 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Member City Council District 2 (2 qualified candidates) and Member City Council District 4 (2) as the city's two November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, both marked "No Incumbent Elected," with every candidate's filed ballot designation -- and that no Mayor or other La Palma contest appears anywhere in the document
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's La Palma, California article: names the current officeholders -- Mayor Mark I. Waldman, Mayor Pro Tem Nitesh P. Patel, and Council Members Debbie S. Baker, Janet Keo Conklin, and Vikesh P. Patel -- confirming Nitesh P. Patel's current council service (he is a District 2 candidate this cycle) and, by describing a rotating Mayor/Mayor Pro Tem title rather than a separately elected Mayor's office, corroborating the county's Proof List showing no La Palma Mayor contest

Last updated August 31, 2026.