Skip to main content

City of Pacific Grove · Statewide General Election

Pacific Grove City Council, District 5

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 one of Pacific Grove's six district-elected City Council seats: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Monterey County city of about 15,090 residents (2020 census). Pacific Grove adopted single-member council districts for the first time this cycle; Districts 1, 3, and 5 are up in 2026, with Districts 2, 4, and 6 following in 2028. A 4-year term.

Chris Thomas is unopposed for the District 5 seat -- he was the only candidate who qualified by the filing deadline, so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome.

This person would hold one of Pacific Grove's six district-elected City Council seats: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Monterey County city of about 15,090 residents (2020 census). Pacific Grove adopted single-member council districts for the first time this cycle; Districts 1, 3, and 5 are up in 2026, with Districts 2, 4, and 6 following in 2028. A 4-year term.

With no opponent, the useful question is not who to choose but what's known about the incoming officeholder. An unopposed win means accountability for this seat over the next four years runs through public records and the next election rather than through this ballot.

Chris Thomas

Thomas, 65, describes his occupation as "Retired" and, by his own account, is a relatively new Pacific Grove resident. He says he walks his dog, Maya, about 80 miles a month around the city, giving him firsthand familiarity with its neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and public spaces. Before moving to Pacific Grove, he says he served as president of his condominium association in Chicago, in a building dating to 1889, where he managed budgets, reserve planning, and capital-improvement projects and worked with the association's architectural-character, zoning, and municipal-code requirements. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Texas and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School. Monterey County Weekly reports his stated priorities include closing the city's budget gap, urban forest management, and supporting local businesses.

Strengths

Budget, reserve-planning, and capital-improvement experience from condominium-association leadership -- a skill set analogous to council budget work, though not earned in government.

Trade-offs

No prior elected or appointed government experience of any kind, and a self-described relatively new Pacific Grove resident with no multi-year local track record to evaluate.

Keep in mind

An unopposed race functions as a retention/ratification question for the only qualified candidate rather than a comparison between alternatives.

Source review: Very strong (90/100) · 6 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • countyofmonterey.gov (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Elections -- official "Candidate List" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election: within the City section, exactly five Pacific Grove rows appear -- Mayor, Member/City Council 2-Year, and Member/City Council Districts 1, 3, and 5 -- confirming the office structure and count, though (as with this page's county-office rows built earlier in this file) no per-seat candidate names render in the fetched page text
  • cityofpacificgrove.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Pacific Grove -- official "November 3, 2026 General Election and Ballot Measures" page: lists every qualified candidate by office (Mayor: Coletti, Smith; District 1: Garfield, Hanley; District 3: Goldbeck, Kubica, Leweling; District 5: Thomas; At-Large: McDonnell, Ogle) and links each candidate's filed Candidate Statement of Qualifications, noting Ogle filed none
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly (montereycountynow.com) -- "Eight candidates are vying for four seats in P.G.'s first-ever district election" (Pam Marino): independently names the same ten candidates across all five races, reports that the at-large seat is a two-year term on the ballot because no one currently represents District 2, and that challenger James Ogle could not be reached for comment
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Pacific Grove, California": used narrowly for population (15,090, 2020 census), incorporation year (1889), and council-manager government type; not for the article's stale 'elected at-large' description of the council, which the city's own 2026 election materials supersede
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- a negative-result campaign-finance search: a direct filer-search query for each of Pacific Grove's ten 2026 candidates returned an empty, contentless response with no filer or committee data renderable at all, in every attempt this session
  • files.cityofpacificgrove.org (opens in a new tab)Chris Thomas's own filed Candidate Statement of Qualifications for Pacific Grove City Council District 5, Nov. 3, 2026 election (age 65, occupation "Retired"): his account of managing budgets and capital-improvement projects as a Chicago condominium-association president, his BA in Economics from the University of Texas and MBA in Finance from the Wharton School, and his description of himself as a relatively new PG resident

Last updated September 1, 2026.