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City of Montague · Statewide General Election

Montague City Council (Short Term)

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 would hold Montague's fifth City Council seat, for a shortened 2-year term running Dec. 4, 2026 - Dec. 8, 2028, after which it rejoins the normal 4-year cycle. This seat sat vacant through and after the November 2024 election -- the Siskiyou County Civil Grand Jury's own June 2026 report on Montague's government found that the City Council's 2024 election-calling resolution failed to properly identify the open seat, and a Feb. 2025 attempt to fill it by direct Council appointment produced no nominee the Council would agree on -- so it heads to a special election instead.

Only one candidate qualified for this seat: John R. McCarthy, who runs unopposed for a shortened 2-year term. Your vote here does not change the outcome.

This is Montague's fifth City Council seat, elected under the same council structure as the city's Full-Term race (see that contest for the full structural detail), but on a shorter clock: a 2-year term running Dec. 4, 2026 - Dec. 8, 2028, after which it rejoins the normal 4-year cycle. Siskiyou County's own header note for city and town council races confirms this is the standard Short-Term window used countywide, not something specific to Montague.

This seat has sat vacant for some time. The Siskiyou County Civil Grand Jury's own June 2026 report on Montague's government (Finding E, "Failure to Fill Open Seats on City Council") found that the seat went unfilled through and after the November 2024 election: the City Council's own resolution calling that election failed to properly identify the open seat, and a Feb. 3, 2025 attempt to fill it by direct Council appointment produced no nominee the Council would agree on. The report states the seat remained vacant as of its own publication date, consistent with the county's Aug. 2026 pre-filing document, which still marked it "Vacant." This is an institutional finding about the Council's own process, not about any 2026 candidate -- it's the direct explanation for why this Short-Term seat exists on the ballot at all.

With no opponent, the useful question is whether anything unusual explains the empty field rather than who to choose. Nothing does beyond the seat's own history: Siskiyou County's own certified 'Offices Going to Ballot' document lists McCarthy in the same undifferentiated format used for every genuinely on-ballot race countywide -- unlike the Town of Fort Jones's structurally similar undersubscribed Council race in the same county, which was dropped from that same document after being cancelled under Elections Code Section 10229. Montague's Short-Term seat was not cancelled; it heads to a genuine, if uncontested, election.

John R. McCarthy

John R. McCarthy is a non-incumbent candidate running for Montague's long-vacant Short-Term Council seat, under the ballot designation "Civil Engineer." He's not a sitting Councilmember or a named appointee in any of the county's or city's own documents -- the seat he's running for was still listed "Vacant" as of the county's pre-filing roster. No occupation details beyond his filed designation, no platform, and no civic background for him were found on any county or city source, in local news, or in a general web search this pass.

Strengths

None independently confirmed beyond his filed "Civil Engineer" designation.

Trade-offs

No platform, civic background, or news coverage was found for his 2026 candidacy, and no stated reason for stepping forward to fill a seat that had sat vacant since before the 2024 election.

Keep in mind

A bare public record is the norm for Montague's races this cycle, not a red flag specific to him -- all three Full-Term candidates in the companion contest have an equally thin one.

Source review: Strong (84/100) · 6 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • siskiyoucounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Siskiyou County Elections -- "Final Siskiyou County Candidate List / Local Offices Going to Election / November 3, 2026, General Election" (PDF metadata title "Candidate List," created Sept. 2, 2026): names Patrick Vela (Incumbent), Gregory E. Johnson (Auto Service Manager), and Linda Avila (Business Manager) as the three qualified candidates for City of Montague City Council's two "Full Term" seats, and John R. McCarthy (Civil Engineer) as the sole qualified candidate for its one "Short Term" seat.
  • siskiyoucounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Siskiyou County Elections -- "List of Local Offices to be Elected -- November 3, 2026, General Election": independently corroborates the two-seat Full-Term Montague City Council count and both pre-filing incumbents' names (Jennifer Dooley, Patrick Vela), gives the countywide term-date ranges (Full-Term 12/4/26-12/6/30, Short Term 12/4/26-12/8/28), and separately shows the Short-Term Council seat marked "Vacant" (no incumbent) even before candidate filing opened.
  • cityofmontagueca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Montague -- "Notice of Municipal Election, City of Montague" (signed by County Clerk Laura Bynum, dated June 18, 2026): states the seat breakdown -- "two City Council Members for four-year terms ending in 2030 and one City Council Member for a two-year term ending in 2028" -- and the standard Elections Code Section 10229 boilerplate.
  • cityofmontagueca.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Montague -- official "City Council" roster page: names the sitting Council (Mayor Takeshi Murakami, plus Councilmembers Michelle Jackson, Jen Dooley, and Pat Vela) -- only four of five seats named, consistent with the Short-Term seat sitting vacant going into this election.
  • siskiyou.news (opens in a new tab)Siskiyou County Civil Grand Jury, via Siskiyou News -- "'Siskiyou County Civil Grand Jury' ~ Montague: A City In Chaos" (June 25, 2026): used narrowly for its Background section's statement that Montague is governed by a five-person City Council which appoints one of its own members as Mayor (per City ordinance 2.20.040), and for Finding E's account of the Short-Term Council seat sitting vacant through and after the November 2024 election after a defective election-calling resolution and a failed Feb. 2025 appointment attempt. NOT used for the report's other findings, which describe alleged misconduct by an unnamed sitting Mayor/Council Member/Fire Chief -- this dataset checked whether that individual is 2026 candidate Patrick Vela and could not confirm it either way, so nothing from those findings appears in this contest's content.
  • siskiyoucounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Siskiyou County Elections page: confirms the county runs no local NetFile-style (or other) searchable campaign-finance portal, directing candidates to the state FPPC generally -- a documented negative result for all four Montague City Council candidates across both races, not a claim about their actual finances.

Last updated September 2, 2026.