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City of Los Alamitos · Statewide General Election

Los Alamitos City Council, District 5

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 Los Alamitos's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Los Alamitos does not directly elect a Mayor -- each December the Council elects one of its own members to serve as Mayor for the coming year. Not all five council districts are elected the same year: only Districts 4 and 5 have terms expiring in 2026; Districts 1, 2, and 3 run through November 2028. A 4-year term, and members are limited to three consecutive terms.

Incumbent Emily Hibard faces challenger John M. Delavigne for Los Alamitos City Council District 5. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff.

This person holds District 5's seat on Los Alamitos's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Los Alamitos does not directly elect a Mayor -- each December the Council elects one of its own members to serve as Mayor for the coming year. Only Districts 4 and 5 have terms expiring in 2026; Districts 1, 2, and 3 run through November 2028. A 4-year term, and members are limited to three consecutive terms.

Hibard is the sitting District 5 councilmember and now seeking re-election, confirmed by the city's own council roster and her own official biography page, though that page does not state how long she has served. Delavigne holds no city office found in this dataset's research. Beyond each candidate's filed occupation and, for Hibard, her city biography page, no independent profile, platform statement, or news coverage was found for Delavigne in this pass despite a real, time-boxed search effort -- documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation.

Emily Hibard

The sitting District 5 councilmember, per the city's own council roster and her own biography page (which does not state the year she was first elected). She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Azusa Pacific University, an M.P.A. from Cal State Northridge, and studied Modern Political Thought at the University of Oxford's St. Edmund Hall. Professionally she works across the manufacturing, media, and music industries and is a member of the Recording Academy's Los Angeles Chapter (the Grammy Awards' voting body). She has authored books on nonprofit organization development and volunteers on boards supporting women in recovery from chemical dependency. Her city biography states her goal as using "all of her experiences to serve her community" but does not lay out specific policy priorities.

Strengths

Sitting-councilmember experience; a graduate public-administration degree (MPA) directly relevant to municipal governance; nonprofit-sector authorship and volunteer experience.

Trade-offs

Her own bio does not state how long she has served or lay out concrete priorities for a new term, and no independently sourced 2026 campaign platform was found in this pass.

Keep in mind

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

John M. Delavigne

Filed his candidacy under the ballot designation "Consultant." 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 self-described consulting background, which at minimum suggests professional advisory experience, though the field or industry is not specified in the county's own record.

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 office was found.

Keep in mind

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

Source review: Strong (89/100) · 3 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • ocvote.gov (opens in a new tab)OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Los Alamitos section (pages 128-130 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Member City Council District 4 and District 5 as the city's two November 2026 races, each Vote for 1 with 2 qualified candidates, naming incumbents Shelley Hasselbrink (District 4) and Emily Hibard (District 5) and each candidate's filed ballot designation
  • cityoflosalamitos.org (opens in a new tab)City of Los Alamitos -- City Council page: confirms the sitting 5-member, district-elected body (Tanya Doby, District 1, Mayor; Gary Loe, District 2; Jordan Nefulda, District 3, Mayor Pro Tem; Shelley Hasselbrink, District 4; Emily Hibard, District 5), that Districts 4 and 5 are the only two with terms ending Nov 2026 (Districts 1-3 run through Nov 2028), 4-year staggered terms with a 3-consecutive-term limit, and that the Mayor is elected annually by the Council from among its own members each December rather than directly by voters
  • cityoflosalamitos.org (opens in a new tab)City of Los Alamitos -- Emily Hibard official council-member biography: BA Political Science (Azusa Pacific), MPA (CSU Northridge); works in manufacturing, media, and music industries; Recording Academy LA Chapter member; authored books on nonprofit development; does not state length of council service or a specific policy platform

Last updated August 31, 2026.