City of Los Altos Hills · Statewide General Election
Los Altos Hills Town Council
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
- Indu Kadambi — Business Owner
- Jim Waschura — Los Altos Hills Planning Commissioner
- Jasmeen Pombra — Physician
This person would hold one of two open seats on Los Altos Hills's five-member Town Council: local land use, the budget, and municipal services in this roughly 8,500-person Santa Clara County hill town, alongside the other three Council seats (not up this cycle). The Mayor and Vice Mayor titles rotate among sitting Council members rather than being separately elected -- only "City Council Member" is on this year's ballot. A 4-year term. All Council seats are elected citywide (at-large), not by district.
Three candidates are running for Los Altos Hills's two open, at-large Town Council seats on the November 3, 2026 ballot: Indu Kadambi, Jim Waschura, and Jasmeen Pombra. Whoever gets the two highest vote totals wins outright -- there is no primary or runoff.
This person would hold one of two open seats on Los Altos Hills's five-member Town Council: local land use, the budget, and municipal services in this roughly 8,500-person Santa Clara County hill town, alongside the other three Council seats (not up this cycle). The Mayor and Vice Mayor titles rotate among sitting Council members rather than being separately elected -- only "City Council Member" is on this year's ballot. A 4-year term. All Council seats are elected citywide (at-large), not by district.
Both open seats belong to sitting Council members George K. Tyson and Kavita Tankha, whose terms expire December 2026, per the Town's own official councilmember roster. Neither filed for reelection -- the Town's own qualified-candidates list names three candidates, all newcomers to the seat. The other three Council seats (Mayor Rajiv Bhateja, Vice Mayor Linda G. Swan, and Stanley Q. Mok, terms expiring December 2028) aren't up this cycle.
Indu Kadambi
Indu Kadambi's filed ballot designation is "Business Owner." She filed her candidate intention statement (FPPC Form 501) on August 7, 2026 -- the final day of the regular nomination period. No campaign website, candidate statement, or independent news coverage of her candidacy was found in this pass.
Strengths
A business owner's practical, on-the-ground perspective on a small town's economy and permitting process, though this pass could not independently verify which business.
Trade-offs
No campaign website, candidate statement, or independent news coverage was found in this pass -- her ballot designation is nearly the whole public record.
Keep in mind
Filing on the deadline's final day (Aug. 7) is common and not itself informative -- California's nomination period runs weeks and many candidates use all of it.
Jim Waschura
Jim Waschura's filed ballot designation is "Los Altos Hills Planning Commissioner," a seat he has held for six years. He has lived in town for 28 years. His own campaign site describes a corporate and engineering background and lays out a platform: public safety and emergency services, efficient town administration, and implementing the town's Housing Element -- via ADU, SB 9, duplex/triplex, and multifamily projects -- to avoid a builder's-remedy lawsuit while protecting the town's semi-rural character. He opposes writing the town's disputed "Green Sheets" development-limits proposal directly into town code, favoring ordinances and objective standards instead. He filed his candidate intention statement on June 22, 2026.
Strengths
Six years of current Planning Commission service and specific, stated positions on Housing Element compliance and the Green Sheets proposal, backed by a working campaign site.
Trade-offs
His campaign site is the source for his own record and platform; no independent news coverage of his 2026 candidacy was found in this pass to corroborate it.
Keep in mind
His opposition to codifying Green Sheets is his own stated position, not this dataset's judgment on the underlying proposal, which this pass did not independently evaluate.
Jasmeen Pombra
Jasmeen Pombra's filed ballot designation is "Physician." She filed her candidate intention statement on July 28, 2026 -- the first of the three candidates to file, roughly six weeks before the nomination period's regular close. No campaign website, candidate statement, or independent news coverage of her candidacy was found in this pass.
Strengths
A physician's clinical perspective on public-health and emergency-services questions, though this pass could not confirm her specialty or where she practices.
Trade-offs
No campaign website, candidate statement, or independent news coverage was found in this pass -- her ballot designation is nearly the whole public record.
Keep in mind
Filing six weeks before the deadline (July 28) is not itself informative -- it says nothing about how contested her candidacy will be, only that she filed early.
Source review: Strong (84/100) · 10 cited sources
Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.
Review note: Jim Waschura's own campaign site (jimwaschura.com), read in full: describes 28 years as a Los Altos Hills resident and six years on the town's Planning Commission, and states a platform of public safety and emergency services, efficient town administration, and implementing the town's Housing Element (via ADU, SB 9, duplex/triplex, and multifamily projects) to avoid a builder's-remedy lawsuit while protecting the town's semi-rural character; states his opposition to writing the disputed "Green Sheets" development-limits proposal directly into town code, favoring ordinances and objective standards instead. may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- "Who is running for Los Altos Hills City Council?" the Town Clerk's own qualified-candidates list: names all three candidates who filed for the two open City Council seats (Indu Kadambi, Jim Waschura, Jasmeen Pombra), each with filed ballot designation and a phone number or email where provided, and links to each candidate's FPPC Form 700 and Form 501.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- "Election Information" page: states two City Councilmember seats are up for four-year terms in the November 3, 2026 election, and that the nomination period closed 5:00 p.m. Friday, August 7, 2026.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- "Meet your Mayor and City Councilmembers" page: names the current five-member Town Council -- Mayor Rajiv Bhateja, Vice Mayor Linda G. Swan, George K. Tyson, Kavita Tankha, and Stanley Q. Mok -- with each member's term-of-office expiration date, confirming Tyson's and Tankha's terms both expire December 2026 and Bhateja's, Swan's, and Mok's all expire December 2028.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- Jasmeen Pombra's own filed FPPC Form 501 (Candidate Intention Statement) for Los Altos Hills City Council Member, date-stamped received by the Town Clerk July 28, 2026 -- the first of the three qualified candidates to file.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- Jim Waschura's own filed FPPC Form 501 (Candidate Intention Statement, filed under his full legal name, James R. Waschura) for Los Altos Hills City Council Member, date-stamped received by the Town Clerk June 22, 2026.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- Indu Kadambi's own filed FPPC Form 501 (Candidate Intention Statement) for Los Altos Hills City Council Member, date-stamped received by the Town Clerk August 7, 2026 -- the final day of the regular nomination period.
- jimwaschura.com (opens in a new tab)Jim Waschura's own campaign site (jimwaschura.com), read in full: describes 28 years as a Los Altos Hills resident and six years on the town's Planning Commission, and states a platform of public safety and emergency services, efficient town administration, and implementing the town's Housing Element (via ADU, SB 9, duplex/triplex, and multifamily projects) to avoid a builder's-remedy lawsuit while protecting the town's semi-rural character; states his opposition to writing the disputed "Green Sheets" development-limits proposal directly into town code, favoring ordinances and objective standards instead.
- en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia's Los Altos Hills, California article: confirms it is an incorporated town (not a city) with a five-member elected Town Council, 2020 census population 8,489, and names Rajiv Bhateja as the current Mayor.
- padailypost.com (opens in a new tab)Palo Alto Daily Post -- "A look at who is running for local offices this fall" (Aug. 19, 2026), read in full: states "Two seats up for grabs belonging to George K. Tyson and Kavita Tankha. Jim Waschura and Jasmeen Pombra have filed to run" -- independent, dated confirmation (as of that article's own snapshot, before Indu Kadambi's later Aug. 7 filing) that this is an open-seat race with no incumbent seeking reelection.
- losaltoshills.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)Town of Los Altos Hills -- "Campaign Finance Statements" page: lists statement postings back to 2016 but had no 2026 filings posted as of this retrieval, and gives no NetFile or other online portal link -- consistent with a town this small, which may keep local committees on paper with the Town Clerk rather than an online portal.
Last updated August 31, 2026.