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City of Monterey · Statewide General Election

Monterey City Council, District 2

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 represent one of Monterey's four council districts on the city's five-member City Council -- the citywide budget, land use, and oversight of city staff for this Monterey County city of 30,218 residents (2020 Census), alongside a directly elected Mayor who is not part of this race. Monterey moved to by-district council elections under a 2022 districting plan; this seat serves a 4-year term.

Three candidates are running for an open seat on Monterey City Council, District 2: Alec Manas, Vicki Nohrden, and Jeff Whitmoyer. Whoever gets the most votes wins outright -- no primary or runoff.

This seat represents one of Monterey's four council districts on the City Council -- the Mayor plus four district councilmembers who set the city's budget, land use, and policy citywide, while an appointed city manager runs day-to-day operations. District 2 covers downtown Monterey, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Munras corridor to Del Monte Center and Ryan Ranch, and serves a 4-year term.

This is an open seat: Vice Mayor Ed Smith, District 2's sitting incumbent since 2022 (and an at-large councilmember before that, back to 2014), is not on the ballot for reelection. Nomination filing for this seat alone was extended from the original August 7, 2026 deadline to August 12, after which the three candidates below qualified -- the only one of Monterey's three November races to need an extension. None of the three has held elected office before.

Vicki Nohrden

Vicki Nohrden's ballot designation is "Nonprofit Director." A Monterey County resident of more than 40 years, her campaign site describes a background in nonprofit leadership and small business, plus volunteer service with CASA, the Monterey County Sheriff's Advisory Council, the county's Inmate Welfare Fund Advisory Committee, and a past term on the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury. Her platform lists five priorities: restoring fiscal responsibility (she cites her own figure of a $12 million citywide structural budget deficit), keeping Monterey affordable for seniors and working families, protecting the city's historic character, strengthening neighborhood infrastructure, and prioritizing resident input over what she calls political agendas.

Strengths

A broad civic-volunteer record (CASA, the county Sheriff's Advisory Council, the county Civil Grand Jury) and a published five-point platform -- the fullest public record of the three candidates.

Trade-offs

No prior elected office; the $12 million deficit figure she cites is her own campaign's number, not independently corroborated by an official city document this pass found.

Keep in mind

The city's own June 2026 rejection of Measure D, a sales-tax measure, is official-record evidence of real budget strain, though her specific $12 million figure was not independently corroborated this pass.

Jeff Whitmoyer

Jeff Whitmoyer's ballot designation, filed with both the county and the city, is "Fiduciary Investment Manager." Neither the county's nor the city's own candidate rosters list a campaign website for him, and no dedicated news coverage of his candidacy was found this pass. This dataset could not independently verify any biographical or platform detail for him beyond his filed ballot designation.

Strengths

Not established beyond his filed occupation; no independent source found this pass describes his background or platform.

Trade-offs

The thinnest public record of the three District 2 candidates -- no campaign site, no news coverage, and no filed candidate statement was reachable this pass.

Keep in mind

His absence from local coverage found this pass is a gap in this dataset's research, not evidence about the candidate himself.

Alec Manas

Alec Manas's ballot designation, filed with both the county and the city, is "Housing Project Manager." As with Whitmoyer, neither official roster lists a campaign website for him, and no dedicated news coverage of his candidacy was found this pass. This dataset could not independently verify any biographical or platform detail for him beyond his filed ballot designation.

Strengths

Not established beyond his filed occupation; no independent source found this pass describes his background or platform.

Trade-offs

Like Whitmoyer, no campaign site, no news coverage, and no filed candidate statement was reachable this pass.

Keep in mind

His absence from local coverage found this pass is a gap in this dataset's research, not evidence about the candidate himself.

Source review: Strong (85/100) · 6 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: Vicki Nohrden's own Monterey City Council District 2 campaign site (vicki4monterey.org): a 40-plus-year Monterey County resident with a nonprofit-leadership and small-business background and volunteer service with CASA, the Monterey County Sheriff's Advisory Council, the Inmate Welfare Fund Advisory Committee, and (previously) the county Civil Grand Jury; a five-point platform that cites her own figure of a $12 million citywide structural deficit and the city's official Councilmember District Map ("Dolphin Plan, Ord. 3646 - 2022"); her own campaign committee's FPPC filer number (1492098). may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • monterey.org (opens in a new tab)City of Monterey's own official Elections page (City Clerk) -- the city's functional Notice of Election for the Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Election: lists exactly one Mayor (elected at large, 2-year term), one Councilmember for District 1 (4-year term), and one for District 2 (4-year term), then names every qualified candidate with the exact filed ballot designation -- Tyller Williamson and Vince Malfitano for Mayor; Kim Barber and Tom Reeves for District 1; Jeff Whitmoyer, Vicki Nohrden, and Alec Manas for District 2 -- and states nominations for Mayor and District 1 closed Aug. 7, 2026 while District 2's nomination period was extended to Aug. 12, 2026, after which three candidates qualified. Reached via a direct HTTP request (200); the WebFetch tool returned 403 on the same URL.
  • monterey.org (opens in a new tab)City of Monterey's own official "Meet the Mayor and Council" page: full officeholder bios and term dates for all five current members -- Mayor Tyller Williamson (elected to Council 2018, Mayor since 2022, re-elected 2024, term expires Dec. 2026); Kim Barber (District 1, elected Nov. 2022, term expires Dec. 2026); Gene "Gino" Garcia (District 4, appointed Dec. 2022, elected Nov. 2024, term expires Dec. 2028); Jean Rasch (District 3, elected Nov. 2024, term expires Dec. 2028); and Vice Mayor Ed Smith (District 2, elected at large in 2014 and 2018, then by District 2 in Nov. 2022, term expires Dec. 2026). Smith's own history independently confirms the city's shift from at-large to by-district council elections between 2018 and 2022, and his absence from the District 2 candidate roster confirms he did not seek re-election. Reached via a direct HTTP request (200); the WebFetch tool returned 403 on the same URL.
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Elections -- official "Candidate List" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election, reached via a Wayback Machine snapshot captured 2026-08-23 (every direct fetch of the live page returned HTTP 403 this pass, and the WebFetch tool cannot reach web.archive.org this session, so this snapshot was retrieved via a direct curl request instead). Renders the complete per-candidate roster for the City of Monterey: Tyller Williamson and Vince Malfitano for Mayor; Kim Barber and Tom Reeves for District 1; Alec M Manas, Jeff Whitmoyer, and Vicki Nohrden for District 2 -- each with ballot-designation occupation and filed contact information, none marked withdrawn or disqualified, matching the city's own Elections page roster word for word.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Monterey, California": council-manager government (a directly elected Mayor plus four district councilmembers), the current officeholder roster, and the city's 2020 Census population (30,218); used narrowly, cross-checked against and superseded by the city's own pages for term lengths and district structure.
  • public.netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance check for the District 1 and District 2 races: direct Cal-Access filer searches returned only an Incapsula bot-detection challenge page, not usable results, and the City of Monterey's own NetFile public campaign-disclosure portal (public.netfile.com/pub2/?AID=cmo) loaded only an empty single-page-app shell to a direct fetch, its filer data behind a client-side API this pass could not identify. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these two races, not any candidate's actual finances.
  • vicki4monterey.org (opens in a new tab)Vicki Nohrden's own Monterey City Council District 2 campaign site (vicki4monterey.org): a 40-plus-year Monterey County resident with a nonprofit-leadership and small-business background and volunteer service with CASA, the Monterey County Sheriff's Advisory Council, the Inmate Welfare Fund Advisory Committee, and (previously) the county Civil Grand Jury; a five-point platform (fiscal responsibility, affordability, neighborhood character, infrastructure, and resident-first leadership) that cites her own figure of a $12 million citywide structural deficit and the city's official Councilmember District Map ("Dolphin Plan, Ord. 3646 - 2022"); her own campaign committee's FPPC filer number (1492098).

Last updated September 1, 2026.