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City of Paso Robles · Statewide General Election

Paso Robles City Council, District 1

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 the District 1 seat on Paso Robles's 5-member City Council (the Mayor is the fifth, elected citywide), representing that district's residents on city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this San Luis Obispo County city of about 31,490 residents (2020 Census). Paso Robles moved from at-large to by-district Council elections after a California Voting Rights Act legal challenge. This seat is a 2-year partial term, filling out the remainder of a term that began with a 2024 special election held after then-Councilmember John Hamon moved up to Mayor in 2023.

Incumbent Kris Beal faces a rematch challenge from Linda George for Paso Robles's District 1 City Council seat.

Paso Robles's City Council has five members -- a directly elected Mayor (a separate race) plus four district Council Members, each representing one of four voting districts the city adopted after a California Voting Rights Act challenge to its former at-large system.

This seat is currently a 2-year partial term: it was last filled in a 2024 special election held after then-Councilmember John Hamon moved up to Mayor in 2023, and the winner of this November's race serves the remaining balance of that cycle before the seat returns to a normal 4-year term.

Kris Beal

Kris Beal is the incumbent, elected in the 2024 special election to complete the District 1 term. She moved to Paso Robles with her family in 1976, earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Cal Poly, and spent 23 years as the founding executive director of the Vineyard Team, a local nonprofit dedicated to sustainable farming that grew to represent 300 members across six counties. In a March 2026 first-person op-ed reflecting on her first year, she described her role as "a bridge between the community and the Council," citing neighborhood walkabouts and informal outreach, a unanimous vote expanding youth park facilities, and a new Ad Hoc Committee on food-truck policy.

Strengths

A long, specific nonprofit-leadership track record (23 years running a sustainable-agriculture organization) and a first term marked by concrete, citable Council actions.

Trade-offs

Her own account of her first year is the fullest record available -- no independent news evaluation of her tenure was found this pass.

Keep in mind

She is completing a partial term that began mid-cycle; this race is about a full return to the seat, not a first-time bid.

Linda George

Linda George is running for District 1 for a second time, after receiving 17% of the vote in the 2024 special election that Beal won. Since then she has stayed active in civic life, regularly attending City Council meetings. Her "Paso First" campaign centers on homelessness, public safety, housing, cannabis regulation, property rights, and fiscal responsibility, including a proposed "Paso Works" program to connect homeless residents with employment. She has said, "I have no conflict of interest, my only interest is you."

Strengths

A specific, multi-issue platform and a concrete policy proposal (Paso Works), plus two years of sustained attendance and engagement with the Council since her first run.

Trade-offs

Lost decisively in her first bid (17% of the vote); no prior elected office.

Keep in mind

A repeat challenger running against the same seat she lost in 2024 -- her continued civic involvement since then is itself part of her case to voters.

Source review: Strong (84/100) · 9 cited sources

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

  • slocounty.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)San Luis Obispo County Elections Division -- "Certified Candidate List for the November 3, 2026 General Election" (report CFMR009): contains three Paso Robles Joint Unified School District rows but no city-office row of any kind for Paso Robles or any other San Luis Obispo County city; a companion county page states the list "does not include candidates running for city office" since city candidates file directly with their own city clerk.
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)City of Paso Robles -- own "City Council" page (retrieved via web.archive.org, since prcity.com itself returns a Cloudflare bot challenge to every direct fetch; Oct. 25, 2025 snapshot): names Paso Robles a general-law, council-manager city with a 5-member Council -- a directly elected Mayor plus four district Council Members, moved from at-large to by-district elections after a California Voting Rights Act challenge (Ordinance 1071 N.S.) -- and lists every sitting officeholder's term-expiration date: Mayor John Hamon, District 1 Kris Beal, and District 2 Chris Bausch each "Term Expires 12/2026"; District 3 Steve Gregory and District 4 Fred Strong each "Term Expires 12/2028."
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)City of Paso Robles -- own election-info page (retrieved via web.archive.org, since prcity.com itself 403s direct fetches; Feb. 3, 2026 snapshot, still titled and slugged for the 2024 cycle since no 2026-specific page has been crawled by the Wayback Machine): describes the city's by-district Council system, its nomination-paperwork process and roughly July 13-Aug. 7 filing window (extendable to Aug. 12 for a non-incumbent challenger to a seat an incumbent didn't refile for), and the 2024 cycle's own offices and qualified candidates -- District 1 (partial term, won by Kris Beal), District 3, District 4, and an at-large Treasurer (Ryan Cornell, unopposed, full 4-year term through 2028) -- used here only for office/process structure and to confirm no Treasurer race recurs in 2026, not as a 2026 candidate roster.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Paso Robles, California": used narrowly for the fixed, dated 2020 Census population figure (31,490) -- the article's own claims about an all-at-large City Council and an elected City Clerk are stale relative to the city's own live/archived pages (which show by-district Council elections and no City Clerk race) and are not used.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local campaign-finance check: no page reachable this session -- the city's own Wayback-archived pages, the Tribune/Paso Robles Daily News/New Times/Cal Coast News coverage, or several guessed NetFile agency codes tried directly against netfile.com's own public filing-log API -- named, linked, or resolved to any specific campaign-finance disclosure portal for Paso Robles candidates. Documents a failure to locate a portal this pass, not a claim that one doesn't exist or that any candidate's finances are unusual.
  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)City of Paso Robles -- Councilmember Kris Beal's own city-published biography page (retrieved via web.archive.org, since prcity.com itself 403s direct fetches; Jan. 9, 2026 snapshot): lists her "Councilmember, District 1, Term: 2024-2026 (partial term)" and gives her own account of her background -- raised in Paso Robles from 1976, Cal Poly bachelor's and master's degrees, 23 years as founding executive director of the Vineyard Team sustainable-farming nonprofit, and local volunteer work.
  • pasoroblesdailynews.com (opens in a new tab)Paso Robles Daily News -- Op-ed by Kris Beal, "Let's shape the future of Paso Robles together": Beal's own first-person account of her first year representing District 1, describing herself as "a bridge between the community and the Council," neighborhood walkabouts and informal community outreach, a unanimous youth-park-facilities vote, and a Food Truck policy Ad Hoc Committee; does not itself address a 2026 reelection bid.
  • pasoroblesdailynews.com (opens in a new tab)Paso Robles Daily News -- "Candidate launches campaign for Paso Robles City Council District 1 seat": reports Linda George's second District 1 candidacy (after 17% of the vote in the 2024 special election), her "Paso First" campaign, and her platform (homelessness, public safety, housing, cannabis regulation, property rights, fiscal responsibility, and a proposed "Paso Works" homeless-employment program), quoting her: "I have no conflict of interest, my only interest is you."
  • yahoo.com (opens in a new tab)San Luis Obispo Tribune (via Yahoo News syndication, since sanluisobispo.com itself could not be fetched by this session's tooling) -- "Paso Robles will get a new mayor, while 2 councilmembers face challengers": the fullest single roundup of the certified field -- Mayor: William Britton, Faith Frankel, Chris Rogalla (three newcomers for the open seat); District 1: incumbent Kris Beal vs. Linda George; District 2: incumbent Chris Bausch vs. Michael Massey vs. Robert Simoni -- with a summary of each candidate's platform and the $841,000-plus Bausch/Ty Lewis legal controversy.

Last updated September 2, 2026.