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City of Marina · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Marina

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 is Marina's directly elected Mayor -- one seat on a five-member City Council (the Mayor plus four district councilmembers) that sets the budget, land use, and public-safety funding for this Monterey County city of 22,359 residents (2020 Census). The Mayor serves a four-year term, elected citywide rather than by district.

Three candidates are running for Marina Mayor: Mayor Pro Tem Liesbeth Visscher, healthcare professional Mike Moeller, and seismic engineer Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera. Vote for one -- no primary.

Marina's Mayor is directly elected citywide to a four-year term, one seat on the five-member City Council that also includes four district councilmembers. The Council sets the budget, land use, and public-safety funding for this Monterey County city of 22,359 residents (2020 Census). This is an open seat: outgoing Mayor Bruce Delgado is not seeking reelection.

Visscher is the only sitting elected official in the race, currently Mayor Pro Tem and the District 4 councilmember; Moeller and Acevedo-Cabrera are both first-time candidates for city office. All three have taken a position on Measure Q, a proposed utility users tax on the same November ballot: Visscher's own site does not address it directly, while Moeller opposes it as written, and Acevedo-Cabrera says she would support it only if reduced to the minimum necessary level.

Liesbeth Visscher

Liesbeth Visscher is Marina's Mayor Pro Tem and the sitting District 4 councilmember. Her campaign cites work alongside outgoing Mayor Bruce Delgado and the Council on street repairs and new parks, helping bring Joby Aviation to Marina, and facilitating affordable-housing units and commercial development including a Trader Joe's. Her platform centers on modernizing aging Fire, Police, and City facilities, opposing a proposed coastal slant-well drilling project for a desalination plant, developing workforce housing at Cypress Knolls for teachers, healthcare workers, and first responders, and building an aquatics and sports center.

Strengths

The only candidate with City Hall experience -- a completed partial term as Mayor Pro Tem with a specific, named record of projects delivered.

Trade-offs

As the sitting District 4 councilmember, her record is the most directly scrutinized of the three. No independent 2026 news profile was found; detail here comes from her own campaign.

Keep in mind

She is not the incumbent Mayor -- Bruce Delgado holds that seat and isn't running -- so this is an open seat even for her.

Mike Moeller

Mike Moeller is a Marina resident and healthcare professional. His campaign describes him as focused on public safety (police, fire, and community services), government transparency and accountability, support for local businesses, and practical infrastructure maintenance -- parks, streets, and roads. He has publicly opposed Measure Q, the proposed 7% utility users tax, as currently written.

Strengths

A clearly stated four-point framework (listen first, build trust, protect taxpayers, bring people together) and a specific Measure Q position.

Trade-offs

No prior elected or appointed public service was found for him, and no independent 2026 news profile beyond his own site was found this pass.

Keep in mind

As a first-time candidate, he has no governance record for voters to check his stated priorities against.

Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera

Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera is a seismic engineer who previously worked on California's Earthquake Early Warning system at UC Berkeley, and has coached entrepreneurs and advised small-business owners. Her platform calls for new Police and Fire Department facilities, citing safety concerns with the current building's layout; on Measure Q, she is skeptical of the tax as proposed but says she would support it only if reduced to the minimum necessary level, and would look for alternative funding if it fails. On housing, she proposes pursuing grant funding for site cleanup at Cypress Knolls and exploring alternative locations and higher-density designs like townhomes to reduce costs for essential workers such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police.

Strengths

A technical, safety-focused background -- seismic engineering and earthquake early-warning systems -- that maps directly onto her public-safety-facilities priority.

Trade-offs

No prior elected or appointed public service was found for her, and no independent 2026 news profile beyond her own site was found this pass.

Keep in mind

Like Moeller, she is a first-time candidate with no governance record to check against her platform.

Source review: Mixed (78/100) · 8 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: Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera's own 2026 Marina mayoral campaign site (sites.google.com/view/analuzformayor): occupation (seismic engineer, formerly on UC Berkeley's Earthquake Early Warning system) and platform (new Police/Fire facilities, a scaled-back Measure Q, Cypress Knolls workforce housing, small-business support)., Liesbeth Visscher's own 2026 Marina mayoral campaign site (liesbethvisscher.com): her current Mayor Pro Tem role and record (Joby Aviation, affordable-housing units, downtown commercial development), and her platform (public-safety facilities, opposing coastal slant-well drilling, Cypress Knolls workforce housing, an aquatics and sports center)., and Mike Moeller's own 2026 Marina mayoral campaign site (mikeformarina.com): occupation (healthcare professional), platform (public safety, transparency, local business support, infrastructure), and his opposition to Measure Q as written. may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • cityofmarina.org (opens in a new tab)City of Marina -- official "Candidate Watch" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election: the City Clerk's own definitive roster of every qualified candidate by seat, with a qualification date and each candidate's own campaign-site link -- Mayor (Mike Moeller, Liesbeth Visscher, Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera), City Council District 1 (Brian McCarthy alone), and City Council District 4 (Michael Simmons, Athena Burciaga, Brad Imamura)
  • cityofmarina.org (opens in a new tab)City of Marina -- official "City Council" page: names the sitting five-member Council and each member's current term -- Mayor Bruce Carlos Delgado (at-large, term Nov. 2022-2026), Mayor Pro Tem Liesbeth Visscher (District 4, term Nov. 2022-2026), Brian McCarthy (District 1, term Nov. 2022-2026), Kathy Y. Biala (District 2, term Nov. 2024-2028), and Jenny McAdams (District 3, term Nov. 2024-2028) -- confirming the Mayor, District 1, and District 4 seats are the only three up in November 2026
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Marina, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population (22,359) and to independently corroborate Bruce Delgado as the sitting Mayor; it does not describe the city's council-district structure and does not cover the 2026 election
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- direct filer searches for "Visscher," "Moeller," "Acevedo-Cabrera," "McCarthy," "Simmons," "Burciaga," and "Imamura" each returned a blank result page, no committee or candidate filer registered under any of the seven names. Cal-Access covers only state-level campaign finance and excludes local government filings in any case, so this documents an absence of a reachable disclosure source for all seven candidates, not a claim about any of their actual finances
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Marina candidates in the race for the District 4 seat talk housing and Measure Q" (Erik Chalhoub, Aug. 31, 2026): profiles all three District 4 candidates -- Athena Burciaga, Brad Imamura, Michael "Mike" Simmons -- on housing and Measure Q, and independently confirms both the Mayor's race field (Visscher, Moeller, Acevedo-Cabrera) and that Brian McCarthy is running unopposed for reelection in District 1
  • mikeformarina.com (opens in a new tab)Mike Moeller's own 2026 Marina mayoral campaign site (mikeformarina.com): occupation (healthcare professional), platform (public safety, transparency, local business support, infrastructure), and his opposition to Measure Q as written
  • liesbethvisscher.com (opens in a new tab)Liesbeth Visscher's own 2026 Marina mayoral campaign site (liesbethvisscher.com): her current Mayor Pro Tem role and record (Joby Aviation, affordable-housing units, downtown commercial development), and her platform (public-safety facilities, opposing coastal slant-well drilling, Cypress Knolls workforce housing, an aquatics and sports center)
  • sites.google.com (opens in a new tab)Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera's own 2026 Marina mayoral campaign site (sites.google.com/view/analuzformayor): occupation (seismic engineer, formerly on UC Berkeley's Earthquake Early Warning system) and platform (new Police/Fire facilities, a scaled-back Measure Q, Cypress Knolls workforce housing, small-business support)

Last updated September 1, 2026.