# Placentia City Council, District 2 Compare records and positions simply between Matt Waugh, Santosh Sabnis, or Julie Suchard for Placentia City Council, District 2 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat on Placentia's five-member City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. An appointed city manager runs daily operations. Placentia has no separately elected Mayor. The council picks a Mayor from among its own members. Not all five council districts are elected the same year. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Placentia - 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/placentia-council-2 - 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: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 3 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Matt Waugh** — Business Executive/Parent - **Santosh Sabnis** — Business Owner/Father - **Julie Suchard** — Community Volunteer A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Three candidates are running for Placentia City Council District 2's open seat: Matt Waugh, Santosh Sabnis, and Julie Suchard. Incumbent Kevin Kirwin did not file for re-election. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. This person holds District 2's seat on Placentia's 5-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Placentia has no separately, citywide-elected Mayor -- the council elects a Mayor from among its own members. Not all five council districts are elected the same year; only Districts 2 and 4 are up in 2026. The term is four years. This is Placentia's only open council seat in 2026 -- the other race, District 4, has the incumbent on the ballot. Beyond each candidate's own filed occupation, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source could be found for any of the three despite a real, per-candidate search effort. Documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation. ## Matt Waugh Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Business Executive/Parent." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort, including a direct guess at a campaign-site domain that failed to resolve. **Strengths:** A business-executive background suggests budget and organizational-management experience relevant to council work. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed designation. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for their campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Santosh Sabnis Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Business Owner/Father." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. **Strengths:** A local business-ownership background suggests direct familiarity with Placentia's commercial and permitting environment. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed designation. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for their campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Julie Suchard Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Community Volunteer." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. **Strengths:** A community-volunteer background suggests existing civic engagement and neighborhood familiarity. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed designation. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for their campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. District 2's outgoing officeholder, Kevin Kirwin, did not file for re-election. Per the city's own biography page, Kirwin has lived in Placentia since age 3, runs an online-safety-training business, and was long active coaching youth soccer and serving as president of Placentia JUSA before entering city government; his stated council priorities have been "balanced budgets, public safety, good roads, clean parks, and an economic environment that attracts business." No source found in this pass states why he chose not to seek re-election. ## Sources 1. [OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Placentia section (pages 141-144 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Member City Council District 2 (3 qualified candidates) and District 4 (2) as the city's two November 2026 council races, each Vote for 1, plus a separate, unopposed City Clerk contest not authored here, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [City of Placentia -- November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election page: confirms Districts 2 and 4 as the council seats up this cycle, lists all five qualified council candidates by district, and confirms City Clerk Robert S. "Bob" McKinnell is unopposed](https://www.placentia.org/1170/November-3-2026-General-Municipal-Electi) 3. [City of Placentia -- Councilmember Kevin Kirwin, District 2 biography page: covers his multi-decade Placentia residency, his online-safety-training business, his history coaching and presiding over Placentia JUSA youth soccer, and his stated council priorities as the outgoing District 2 officeholder, who did not file for re-election in 2026](https://www.placentia.org/674/Councilmember-Kevin-Kirwin-District-2) ## The rest of the ballot Placentia City Council, District 2 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, "Placentia City Council, District 2 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/placentia-council-2 (sources last retrieved August 31, 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.