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City of Lathrop · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Lathrop

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On the ballot

Lathrop's Mayor is directly elected citywide (at-large) to a 2-year term and presides over a 5-member City Council -- the Mayor plus four Council Members, all elected at-large -- in this general-law, council-manager city of about 28,701 residents (2020 Census) in San Joaquin County, incorporated July 1, 1989. City Manager Stephen J. Salvatore runs day-to-day operations under Council direction.

Incumbent Mayor Paul Akinjo, seeking a second term, faces Minnie "Cotton" Diallo, a sitting Councilwoman and former Vice Mayor, who is giving up her Council seat to run for the top job.

Lathrop's Mayor is directly elected citywide (at-large) to a 2-year term and presides over a 5-member City Council -- the Mayor plus four Council Members, all elected at-large -- in this general-law, council-manager city of about 28,701 residents (2020 Census) in San Joaquin County, incorporated July 1, 1989. City Manager Stephen J. Salvatore runs day-to-day operations under Council direction.

This is a direct plurality election with no primary and no runoff -- whichever candidate receives the most votes on November 3 wins outright. Akinjo was first elected Mayor in the Nov. 5, 2024 General Municipal Election; that term expires this December. Diallo currently serves on the Council after previously serving as Vice Mayor; her own Council seat is not on this ballot, since only two of the four Council seats -- not including hers -- expire this cycle.

Paul Akinjo

His filed ballot designation is "City of Lathrop Mayor." In his own filed candidate statement, Akinjo points to a list of concrete second-term projects: secured transit funding, the opening of River Islands High School (Lathrop's second high school), a Phase 4 expansion of the city's Wastewater Treatment Facility, and investment including a Sam's Club and a Sutter Health facility, with a Redwood Cafe and a River Islands Amphitheater and events center still moving forward. He also cites launching "Slow Down Lathrop," a pedestrian-safety program, and says the city has maintained a balanced budget with protected reserves.

Strengths

A first term's worth of concrete, checkable projects to point to -- a second high school, a wastewater-facility expansion, and named business investment -- rather than only general promises.

Trade-offs

As the incumbent, he owns the city's current trajectory, including any tradeoffs of the growth he touts (new development, traffic, and infrastructure demands that come with it).

Keep in mind

This dataset found no independent, non-campaign accounting of the specific claims in his statement (e.g., verifying the transit-funding amount or reserve levels) -- his own filed statement is the source for each.

Minnie "Cotton" Diallo

Her filed ballot designation is "City of Lathrop Councilwoman." A sitting Councilmember and former Vice Mayor, Diallo's own filed candidate statement describes coordinating the distribution of food and water boxes to Lathrop families and seniors during COVID-19 and helping secure bus transportation for students. Her central platform plank is reforming how the Mayor appoints residents to city boards, commissions, and committees, which she says should be "open, transparent, and merit-based" rather than left to the Mayor's discretion.

Strengths

Sitting Council experience plus a prior term as Vice Mayor gives her direct familiarity with how City Hall currently runs.

Trade-offs

She is choosing not to seek re-election to her own Council seat to run for Mayor instead -- a bet on a citywide race rather than a guaranteed continuation of her current seat.

Keep in mind

No official city biography page was found published for Diallo (unlike Akinjo, Dresser, Lazard, and Torres-O'Callaghan, each of whom has one) -- a documented gap in what the city itself makes available about her, not a claim about her record.

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 13 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • sjgov.org (opens in a new tab)San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- official "Offices Up for the 2026 General Election" document: confirms the City of Lathrop's office structure -- Mayor (one seat, at-large, 2-year term) and Member of City Council (two seats, at-large, 4-year term each) -- with 20 nominations needed and a combined $800 Statement of Qualifications estimate for the two office types
  • sjgov.org (opens in a new tab)San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters -- "Qualified Candidate List" (report CFMR009, printed 8/20/2026): confirms both November 2026 City of Lathrop contests as On Ballot: Yes -- Contest 3570, Mayor, Vote For 1 (Paul Akinjo, "City of Lathrop Mayor," incumbent; Minnie "Cotton" Diallo, "City of Lathrop Councilwoman") and Contest 3572, City Council, Vote For 2 (Steve Dresser, "Appointed Incumbent"; Leandro Vicuna, "Bank Executive/Father"; Daniel MacNeilage, "Construction Superintendent"; Shelita Jefferson, "Realtor/Mother") -- with every candidate's exact filed ballot designation and an Aug. 7, 2026 qualified date for all six
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official "General Municipal Election -- November 3, 2026" City Clerk page: the fullest single source for this shard -- states the same office structure as the county's document, names all six qualified candidates, and explicitly ties each of the two open Council seats to a named outgoing officeholder ("current terms ending: Council Members Stephen Dresser and Diane Lazard"); links each candidate's own filed Statement of Qualifications, the Notice of Extended Nomination Period, and the Candidate Log
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official "Notice of Extended Nomination Period for City Council Contest(s)" (dated Aug. 4, 2026, published Aug. 6, per Elections Code Section 10225): states the Council nomination period was extended through Aug. 12, 2026 because an incumbent eligible for reelection (Diane Lazard) withdrew her nomination papers before the close of the regular period; confirms the Mayor's nomination period was not extended; lists Akinjo, Dresser, and Lazard as the three incumbents who were issued papers as of Aug. 4, with Lazard's papers marked "Withdrawn Date: August 3, 2026"
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official "Candidate Log, General Municipal Election, November 3, 2026" (uploaded 8/7/2026): gives exact nomination-papers-issued, filed, and qualified dates for every filer in both contests, including two Council filers who did not qualify -- Michael Wells (withdrew July 27, 2026) and incumbent Diane Lazard (withdrew Aug. 3, 2026, triggering the Section 10225 extension) -- alongside the four who did qualify (Dresser, MacNeilage, Vicuna, Jefferson) and the two Mayoral qualifiers (Akinjo, Diallo)
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official "City Council" page: confirms the five-member structure -- "the Mayor and four Council Members" -- and names the full current roster (Mayor Paul Akinjo; Vice Mayor Jennifer Torres-O'Callaghan; Councilmembers Diane Lazard, Stephen Dresser, and Minnie Diallo); links each of Akinjo's, Torres-O'Callaghan's, Lazard's, and Dresser's own official biography PDFs (no bio PDF is linked for Diallo)
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official City Manager page: names Stephen J. Salvatore as the current City Manager
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Lathrop, California": independently confirms Paul Akinjo as Mayor and Stephen Salvatore as City Manager under a council-manager government; gives the 2020 Census population (28,701) and July 1, 1989 incorporation date
  • southtechhosting.com (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop's own SouthTech "CampaignDocs eRetrieval" public campaign-finance portal (linked from the city's Campaign Statements page): a negative-result check -- the portal loads (HTTP 200) but is a classic ASP.NET WebForms application driven by server-side postbacks with no static content, query-string search, or documented public API reachable by this session's tooling. Documents the absence of a reachable local financial-disclosure source for any of the six 2026 Lathrop candidates, not any candidate's actual finances
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official Council biography PDF for Mayor Paul Akinjo (no further career or education detail is included in the file beyond his name, title, and photo)
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of Lathrop -- official Council biography PDF for Vice Mayor Jennifer Torres-O'Callaghan: confirms a term of "December 2024 to December 2028," re-elected in the Nov. 5, 2024 General Municipal Election. Cited in this shard only to independently confirm her seat is not up in Nov. 2026
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)Paul Akinjo's own filed Candidate's Statement of Qualifications for Mayor: cites second-term accomplishments including secured Transit funding, River Islands High School (the city's second high school), Phase 4 expansion of the Wastewater Treatment Facility, Sam's Club and Sutter Health investment, the Redwood Cafe and River Islands Amphitheater/events center projects underway, the "Slow Down Lathrop" pedestrian-safety initiative, and a balanced budget with protected reserves
  • ci.lathrop.ca.us (opens in a new tab)Minnie 'Cotton' Diallo's own filed Candidate's Statement of Qualifications for Mayor: identifies herself as a former Vice Mayor and current Councilmember; describes coordinating food and water box distribution during COVID-19 and helping secure student bus transportation; states her priority as reforming the Mayor's own appointment process for city boards, commissions, and committees toward a more open, merit-based system

Last updated September 1, 2026.