# Murrieta City Council, District 5 Compare records and positions simply between Cindy Warren or Luiz Valdez Jr. for Murrieta City Council, District 5 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Murrieta's City Council. The council has five members. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The term is four years. The council picks one of its own members to serve as Mayor. It picks another to serve as Mayor Pro Tem. These titles rotate rather than being separately elected. An appointed city manager runs day to day operations. - Jurisdiction: City of Murrieta - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/murrieta-council-5 - 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 3, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Cindy Warren** — Incumbent - **Luiz Valdez Jr.** A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Cindy Warren faces challenger Luiz Valdez Jr. for Murrieta's District 5 City Council seat. The winner holds one of five district seats on Murrieta's City Council, a 4-year term. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The council selects one of its own members to serve as Mayor and another as Mayor Pro Tem -- the titles rotate rather than being separately elected -- and day-to-day operations run through an appointed city manager. Whoever gets more votes wins; Murrieta elects its council directly, with no primary. Warren filed and qualified July 30, 2026; Valdez qualified August 4, per the city's own nomination-papers record. No independent biography, occupation, or platform statement was found for Valdez beyond that record -- a documented gap: name searches across four search engines returned nothing relevant or were blocked by automated-traffic challenges this research could not clear, and a Facebook search returned no result. ## Cindy Warren The incumbent District 5 councilmember. Per the city's own biography page, she founded a design, print, and promotional-products business at age 24 that has operated for 42 years, and moved to Murrieta in fall 2013 after raising her family and building that business in Orange County. She has been active with the Murrieta/Wildomar Chamber of Commerce since 2014, including recognition as its 2018 Ambassador of the Year and 2021 Citizen of the Year. **Strengths:** Incumbency, a four-decade record running a business, and over a decade of documented local civic involvement through the Chamber of Commerce. **Trade-offs:** No documented policy disagreements or controversies were found in this research pass -- the record here is drawn entirely from the city's own biography of her, not independent reporting. **Keep in mind:** Her city biography lists public safety, economic development, infrastructure/traffic, government transparency, and parks as her stated priorities -- self-described goals on an official city page, not independently verified accomplishments. ## Luiz Valdez Jr. A challenger, not a sitting officeholder, who qualified for the ballot August 4, 2026. No independent biography, occupation, or platform statement was found for them beyond the city's own filing record. **Strengths:** None could be independently confirmed in this research pass. **Trade-offs:** No incumbency, and no independent biography, professional background, or stated platform was found for them. **Keep in mind:** With no public record to evaluate beyond their name and filing date, this is effectively a choice between continuity (the incumbent's record) and an unknown quantity (their candidacy). ## Sources 1. [City of Murrieta City Clerk -- "Qualified Candidates Contact List for Member of the City Council Districts 1, 2, and 5": names every candidate who qualified for the Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Election by district (Jon Levell, District 1; Joshua Barton, Ron Holliday, and Keelan McCullough, District 2; Luiz Valdez Jr. and Cindy Warren, District 5), and states explicitly "No other qualified candidates for District 1."](https://www.murrietaca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/16847) 2. [City of Murrieta City Clerk -- "List of Nomination Papers Issued and Filed for Member of the City Council Districts 1, 2 and 5," updated Aug. 7, 2026 (the close of the nomination period): gives each candidate's full legal name (Joshua Morgan Barton, not just "Joshua Barton") and filing/qualification dates, corroborating the qualified-candidates list above with a second, later-dated city record.](https://www.murrietaca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/16689) 3. [City of Murrieta -- "Elections" / Election Central page: states the Nov. 3, 2026 General Municipal Election's nomination period (July 13 -- Aug. 7, 2026) and voter-registration deadline (Oct. 19, 2026), that Council members are "elected by-district," and cites Elections Code section 10227's district-residency requirement for candidates.](https://www.murrietaca.gov/378/Elections) 4. [City of Murrieta -- "City Council" government page: lists the current 5-member, by-district Council -- Jon Levell (Mayor, District 1), Ron Holliday (Mayor Pro Tempore, District 2), Lisa DeForest (District 3), Lori Stone (District 4), Cindy Warren (District 5) -- corroborating each 2026 incumbent's district and office, and showing the Mayor/Mayor Pro Tem titles attached to district seats rather than a separately elected office.](https://www.murrietaca.gov/377/City-Council) 5. [Riverside County Registrar of Voters — 2026 Annual Election Calendar (lists every November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election office by city, including "City of Cathedral City: City Council District 3 / District 4 / District 5 / City Treasurer")](https://voteinfo.net/sites/g/files/aldnop371/files/2026-02/Annual%20Election%20Calendar%202026.pdf) 6. [Wikipedia -- "Murrieta, California": lists the current Mayor (Cindy Warren per this dataset's retrieval -- see note below), Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council, independently corroborating that Jon Levell, Ron Holliday, and Cindy Warren are sitting councilmembers; describes the city as a "Council-manager" government but does not explain Mayor selection or give council term lengths. (Wikipedia's own snapshot listed Cindy Warren, not Jon Levell, as Mayor -- an apparent lag behind the city's own current page, which this dataset follows as the more authoritative, more frequently updated source; Wikipedia is cited here only for roster corroboration, not for the Mayor title.)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murrieta,_California) 7. [City of Murrieta -- Cindy Warren council-member biography page: founded a design, print, and promotional-products business at 24, operating for 42 years; moved to Murrieta in fall 2013; stated priorities are public safety, economic development, infrastructure/traffic, government transparency, and parks; active with the Murrieta/Wildomar Chamber of Commerce since 2014 (2018 Ambassador of the Year, 2021 Citizen of the Year).](https://www.murrietaca.gov/385/Cindy-Warren) 8. [City of Murrieta NetFile — public campaign-disclosure search](https://netfile.com/public/CMA/campaign/search-entities) ## The rest of the ballot Murrieta City Council, District 5 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, "Murrieta City Council, District 5 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/murrieta-council-5 (sources last retrieved September 3, 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.