# Mendota City Council Compare records and positions simply between Libertad "Liberty" Lopez, Oscar H. Rosales, and 2 more for Mendota City Council at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of three City Council seats in Mendota. Council members vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. This dataset could not confirm the council's total size. It also could not confirm how Mendota picks its Mayor. - Jurisdiction: City of Mendota - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Seats: 3 - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/mendota-council - 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: September 1, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 90 out of 100 (Very strong), across 4 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Libertad "Liberty" Lopez** — Clinician/Mother · Incumbent - **Oscar H. Rosales** — Maintenance Operations Director - **Joseph R. Riofrio** — Incumbent - **Victor M. Martinez** — Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Four candidates are running for three of Mendota's City Council seats on November 3: incumbents Joseph Riofrio, Victor Martinez, and Libertad "Liberty" Lopez are all seeking another term against challenger Oscar Rosales. This person would hold one of three at-large City Council seats up this cycle. Mendota is a Fresno County farming city of about 12,600 residents in the San Joaquin Valley. It calls itself "The Cantaloupe Center of the World." Two things are still unconfirmed. One is whether Mendota's Mayor is elected by voters or picked by the Council from its own members. The other is the total size of the Council. The city's own site, ci.mendota.ca.us, returned only a broken-setup error every time. Two look-alike sites turned out to be other cities. Both cityofmendota.org and a "City of Mendota" Facebook page belong to same-named cities in Minnesota and Illinois. Neither is California's Mendota. Wikipedia names Victor Martinez as the sitting Mayor. He is one of the three incumbents here. He is running for a council seat, not in a separate Mayor contest. That fits a Council-picked Mayor but does not prove one. Mendota has no elected City Clerk or City Treasurer in either Fresno County candidate document. Four names are on the ballot for three seats. This is a plurality race decided in one round. The three highest vote-getters win outright. Two incumbents list their ballot label as simply "Incumbent," with no job named. The third incumbent, Libertad "Liberty" Lopez, filed as "Clinician and Mother" instead. Fresno County's own incumbent-of-record listing confirms Lopez holds their seat by election. Lopez just did not use the word "Incumbent" on the ballot. Rosales filed as "Maintenance Operations Director." None of the four filed a Candidate Statement. No independent reporting compares the four or covers the race. ## Joseph R. Riofrio An incumbent seeking another term; Riofrio's filed ballot designation is simply "Incumbent," with no stated occupation. Fresno County's own records confirm they hold this seat by direct election, not appointment. This dataset found no independent biographical detail (occupation, background, or platform) for them beyond the county's own filing. **Strengths:** A term already served on the Council, confirmed by the county's own incumbent-of-record listing. **Trade-offs:** No independent reporting or biography rates Riofrio's record. Their job, background, and platform are all unconfirmed. **Keep in mind:** No candidate statement was filed for this race. No campaign site or social media presence was found for them. ## Victor M. Martinez An incumbent seeking another term; his filed ballot designation is simply "Incumbent," with no stated occupation. Fresno County's own records confirm he holds this seat by direct election, not appointment. Wikipedia independently confirms he currently serves as Mendota's Mayor, though this dataset could not confirm whether that title is directly elected or assigned by the Council from among its own members. This dataset found no further independent biographical detail for him beyond those two sources. **Strengths:** A term already served on the Council. Wikipedia also names him as the city's current Mayor. **Trade-offs:** No independent reporting rates his record in either role. His job, background, and platform beyond the Mayor title are unconfirmed. **Keep in mind:** No candidate statement was filed for this race. ## Libertad "Liberty" Lopez An incumbent seeking another term; Lopez's filed ballot designation is "Clinician/Mother" rather than the word "Incumbent." Fresno County's own separate incumbent-of-record listing confirms they hold this seat by direct election, not appointment, despite that filed designation. This dataset found no independent detail on what clinical role they hold beyond the two-word ballot designation. **Strengths:** A term already served on the Council, confirmed by the county's own incumbent-of-record listing. Lopez also states a clinical background, which is not spelled out further. **Trade-offs:** No independent reporting or biography rates Lopez's record. What "Clinician" means in practice, their background, and their platform are all unconfirmed. **Keep in mind:** No candidate statement was filed for this race. Lopez is the only one of the three incumbents who did not file as "Incumbent." ## Oscar H. Rosales The only challenger in the field, facing all three sitting incumbents; Rosales's filed ballot designation is "Maintenance Operations Director." This dataset found no independent biographical detail (what organization, background, or platform) for them beyond the county's own candidate filing. **Strengths:** A stated operations-management job that could bring a facilities and logistics view to the Council. It is not spelled out further. **Trade-offs:** No campaign materials, endorsements, or independent coverage were found for Rosales. **Keep in mind:** Rosales is the only challenger facing three incumbents for three seats, so they have no council voting record. They qualified last among the four candidates this cycle. ## Sources 1. [Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters -- CFMR009 "Candidate List" for the Nov. 3, 2026 Consolidated Statewide General Election (printed 8/12/2026 5:37:13PM, post-filing-deadline): lists Mendota's single City Council contest (5120), Vote For 3, with Joseph R. Riofrio ("Incumbent"), Victor M. Martinez ("Incumbent"), Libertad "Liberty" Lopez ("Clinician/Mother"), and Oscar H. Rosales ("Maintenance Operations Director") as the four qualified candidates, none of whom filed a Candidate Statement](https://www2.fresnocountyca.gov/2850/post/2026NOV/CandidateList.pdf) 2. [Fresno County Clerk/Registrar of Voters -- CFMR001 "Contest/Candidate Proof List," filtered to Contests on Ballot, for the Nov. 3, 2026 election (printed 8/18/2026 8:39:55AM): independently confirms Mendota's City Council contest (5120) as ON BALLOT, Vote For 3, 4 qualified of 4 filed, and separately names Victor Manuel Martinez Ayala, Libertad Esmeralda Lopez, and Joseph Ruben Riofrio as the seat's three incumbents-of-record, each reaching their current seat by direct election ("Elected"), not appointment](https://www2.fresnocountyca.gov/2850/post/2026NOV/Contests%20on%20Ballot%20with%20Qualified%20Candidates.pdf) 3. [Wikipedia's Mendota, California article: population 12,595 (2020 census), incorporated June 17, 1942, self-described as "The Cantaloupe Center of the World"; names Victor Martinez as Mayor and Jose Alonso as Mayor Pro Tempore, with no further detail on council size, term length, or how those titles are assigned](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendota,_California) 4. [This dataset's own documented record of a blocked Cal-Access search for all four Mendota City Council candidates: cal-access.sos.ca.gov returned only an HTTP 403 Incapsula bot-detection response for every query attempted this session (WebFetch and direct curl alike), and no live browser session was available in this worktree to work around it; this dataset's own cached statewide Cal-Access snapshot carries no filer for any of the four (it covers only state-level contests). Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for this contest, not any candidate's actual finances](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Candidates/list.aspx?view=certified&session=2025) ## The rest of the ballot Mendota City Council 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, "Mendota City Council — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/mendota-council (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.