# Los Alamitos City Council, District 5 Compare records and positions simply between Emily Hibard or John M. Delavigne for Los Alamitos City Council, District 5 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Los Alamitos's City Council. The council has five members. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. An appointed city manager 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. That Mayor serves for the coming year. Not all five council districts are elected in the same year. Only Districts 4 and 5 have terms ending in 2026. Districts 1, 2, and 3 run through November 2028. The term is four years. Members are limited to three terms in a row. - Jurisdiction: City of Los Alamitos - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/los-alamitos-council-5 - 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: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 3 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Emily Hibard** — Councilmember/Business Owner · Incumbent - **John M. Delavigne** — Consultant A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. 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. They vote on 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. The term is four years, 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 their candidacy under the ballot designation "Consultant." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their 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 their priorities beyond their 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. ## Sources 1. [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](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [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](https://www.cityoflosalamitos.org/165/City-Council) 3. [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](https://www.cityoflosalamitos.org/496/Emily-Hibard) ## The rest of the ballot Los Alamitos City Council, District 5 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, "Los Alamitos City Council, District 5 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/los-alamitos-council-5 (sources last retrieved August 31, 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.