Skip to main content

City of Novato · Statewide General Election

Novato City Council, District 4

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 serve a 4-year term on Novato's 5-member City Council, representing District 4 in southwestern Novato. Novato's Council is elected entirely by district to staggered 4-year terms, with the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem chosen each year by the Council from among its own members rather than elected directly.

Four candidates are running for Novato City Council District 4: incumbent Councilmember Pat Eklund, Luiggino Joseph Galletto III, Chris Carpiniello, and Dan Christian. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

Novato's five-member City Council is elected by district to overlapping four-year terms. District 4 covers southwestern Novato. The Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem rotate among council members; voters here are choosing a district representative, not a separately elected mayor.

The choice contrasts a council veteran with three challengers whose experience comes from construction and small business, pastoral and commission service, and entertainment development and design review.

Pat Eklund

Pat Eklund is the incumbent District 4 council member. She was first elected to the Council in 1995 and has served seven annual rotations as Mayor, most recently in 2020-21. The city's current roster says her term is up in November 2026.

Strengths

Three decades of direct Council experience and repeated turns leading meetings as Mayor.

Trade-offs

As the long-serving incumbent, she is closely identified with the city's existing direction and decisions.

Keep in mind

Mayor is a rotating Council role in Novato, not a separate office; this race is for the District 4 seat.

Luiggino Joseph Galletto III

Luiggino 'Lui' Galletto III says he moved to Novato after joining Lucasfilm and has spent more than a decade working in entertainment development and strategy, matching his ballot designation. He lives near Scottsdale Pond in District 4 and serves as an alternate on Novato's Design Review Commission, a role independently confirmed by the city's official boards roster. His platform emphasizes fiscal responsibility and transparency, commercial revitalization, and more accountable communication with residents.

Strengths

Current city commission experience, a strategy background, and a three-part public platform.

Trade-offs

His biography and policy case come primarily from his own campaign site; the city roster independently confirms the commission role but does not evaluate his work.

Keep in mind

His commercial-vacancy figures and proposed approach are campaign claims, not independent findings.

Chris Carpiniello

Chris Carpiniello is a homebuilder and business owner who says he has held a California General Building Contractor license since 1987. In a May 2026 Patch questionnaire during his run for county supervisor, he cited four decades of project management, budgeting, and estimating, plus work with church organizations, the Marin Builders Association, and the county Republican committee. He named affordability, housing, and funding shortfalls as leading concerns and advocated broad reviews of spending, taxes, fees, and regulations.

Strengths

Long experience running construction projects and a business, with concrete budgeting and estimating responsibilities.

Trade-offs

His stated policy agenda favors aggressive deregulation and spending review; voters should weigh that approach against service and infrastructure needs.

Keep in mind

The detailed questionnaire was for his June 2026 county-supervisor campaign, so it shows his philosophy but is not a District 4-specific platform.

Dan Christian

Dan Christian is a Novato pastor, educator, and city commissioner. His campaign says he has led Good Shepherd Lutheran Church and School since 2019 and serves on Novato's Economic Development Advisory Commission. He calls for collaborative, transparent, fiscally responsible government and links economic development to funding public safety, roads, traffic improvements, parks, trails, and gathering spaces.

Strengths

Community leadership and city advisory-commission experience, with a platform connecting economic development to core services.

Trade-offs

No elected-office record, and the detailed biography and platform are self-described on his campaign site.

Keep in mind

His pastoral role is part of his experience case, but the Council's work is secular municipal policy and budgeting.

Source review: Strong (85/100) · 13 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: Dan Christian's campaign website: describes his Novato pastoral and commission service and his platform of collaborative, transparent, fiscally responsible government, public safety, economic development, roads, parks, and trails. and Luiggino 'Lui' Galletto III's campaign website: says he moved to Novato after joining Lucasfilm, has more than a decade in entertainment development and strategy, lives near Scottsdale Pond in District 4, serves on the Design Review Commission, mentors Haas students, and campaigns on fiscal responsibility, commercial revitalization, and accountability. may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

  • marincounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Marin County Elections Department -- the same "Status of local candidates for office 11/03/26" page cited elsewhere in this dataset as a bare table of contents, reloaded via a live browser session this pass (a plain WebFetch/curl still returns HTTP 403): the live-rendered page in fact publishes a full per-contest candidate roster with self-declared occupations, not just office titles. For City of Novato Councilmember District 2, it lists three qualified candidates -- Farac, Rachel (Incumbent, filed 7/16/2026), Little, Mike (Distribution Design Engineer, filed 7/21/2026), Rasmussen, Bob (Electric Incident Investigator, filed 8/6/2026) -- matching the roster already established from Marin IJ reporting exactly, with no further filings or withdrawals, and independently supplying each non-incumbent's occupation for the first time. Page footer: "Created: 8/17/2026."
  • novato.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Novato -- official district-election page: lists the four qualified District 4 candidates and their issue, filing, and qualification dates; identifies Pat Eklund as the incumbent.
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Dick Spotswood, "Seats across Marin are up for grabs in November" (July 18, 2026, a pre-filing-deadline preview): names Novato's three council posts up for election as District 4 (Pat Eklund, "the dean of Marin council members," serving since 1995), District 2 (Mayor Rachel Farac, expected to seek reelection), and District 5 ("newly appointed District 5 Councilmember Sandeep Karkal, who remains executive director of the Novato Sanitary District"), and states the candidate-filing period runs through Aug. 7 (Aug. 12 where an incumbent doesn't refile).
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Keri Brenner, "Marin candidate list lengthens for November election" (Aug. 8, 2026, published as the initial filing deadline closed): reports "In Novato, the terms of Mayor Rachel Farac of District 2, Councilmember Pat Eklund of District 4 and Councilmember Sandeep Karkal of District 5 are ending. Farac, Bob Rasmussen and Michael Little have filed for the District 2 seat. Eklund, Luiggino Joseph Galletto, Chris Carpiniello and Daniel Christian have filed for the District 4 seat. Karkal has filed to seek reelection as well."
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Keri Brenner, "More contenders pile into Marin's fall elections" (published Aug. 13, 2026, updated Aug. 15, 2026, after the extended filing deadline closed): the final post-deadline roster, reporting "Novato City Council: Terms are expiring for Rachel Farac of District 2, Councilmember Pat Eklund of District 4 and Councilmember Sandeep Karkal of District 5. Farac, Bob Rasmussen and Michael Little have filed for the District 2 seat. Eklund, Luiggino Joseph Galletto, Chris Carpiniello and Daniel Christian have filed for the District 4 seat. Karkal has filed for reelection" -- an identical roster to the Aug. 8 piece, independently confirming no further filings or withdrawals occurred in the extension window for Novato.
  • marinij.com (opens in a new tab)Marin Independent Journal -- Dick Spotswood, "Marin candidates emerge as election filing closes" (published Aug. 15, 2026, updated Aug. 28, 2026): states "Two Novato council members will face opponents. Pat Eklund, first elected to the city council in 1995, faces three challengers in southwestern District 4. They include Chris Carpiniello, Dan Christian and Luiggino Galletto III. In her west Novato District 2, incumbent Rachel Farac faces two challengers: Bob Rasmussen and Mike Little." and "Appointed incumbent Sandeep Karkal is unopposed in southwest Novato District 5" -- an explicit, independent, dated statement (three days after the final filing deadline closed) that District 5 is an active, unopposed printed ballot race, with no mention anywhere of a Section 10229 cancellation, appointment, or council resolution for the seat.
  • novato.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Novato -- official City Council page: explains district elections and overlapping four-year terms and documents Pat Eklund's service as Mayor in seven annual rotations since 1996 and her 2026 reelection date.
  • patch.com (opens in a new tab)Novato Patch -- Albert Gregory, 'Meet Chris Carpiniello, Candidate For Marin County Board Of Supervisors' (May 4, 2026): a candidate questionnaire documenting his licensed-contractor career since 1987, business-management experience, community and party-committee work, and stated affordability, housing, and budget priorities.
  • danchristianfornovato.com (opens in a new tab)Dan Christian's campaign website: describes his Novato pastoral and commission service and his platform of collaborative, transparent, fiscally responsible government, public safety, economic development, roads, parks, and trails.
  • galletto4novato.com (opens in a new tab)Luiggino 'Lui' Galletto III's campaign website: says he moved to Novato after joining Lucasfilm, has more than a decade in entertainment development and strategy, lives near Scottsdale Pond in District 4, serves on the Design Review Commission, mentors Haas students, and campaigns on fiscal responsibility, commercial revitalization, and accountability.
  • novato.granicus.com (opens in a new tab)City of Novato Granicus boards roster -- official Design Review Commission page: independently lists Lui Galletto as a first-term alternate, corroborating the civic role described on his campaign site.
  • public.netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local campaign-finance check: three plausible NetFile agency codes for Marin County/Novato local candidates (MRN, NOVATO, MARIN) were each checked directly at public.netfile.com/pub2/ this pass -- every one returns only the same client-rendered single-page-application shell (a bare <div id="app"> with no server-rendered content), the same access gap documented dataset-wide for other NetFile jurisdictions. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source, not any candidate's actual campaign finances.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result access check: California's statewide Cal-Access campaign-finance filer/candidate search was queried directly this pass and returned only a near-empty stub response (1,071 bytes, no candidate or filer content) -- consistent with the Cal-Access bot-wall documented elsewhere in this dataset. Local candidates for a seat like this typically file with the county/city rather than the state in any case. Documents an access gap, not a claim about any candidate's actual state-level filings.

Last updated September 3, 2026.