# Pleasant Hill City Council, District 4

Compare records and positions simply between Sue Noack or Quy Tran for Pleasant Hill City Council, District 4 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of five district seats on Pleasant Hill's City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. Pleasant Hill is a Contra Costa County city of about 34,600 residents. An appointed City Manager runs daily operations. Pleasant Hill is a General Law City. The Mayor is chosen each year by fellow Council members, not by voters. So this seat is simply Councilmember, even if its holder later becomes Mayor. The term is four years. Whichever candidate gets the most votes wins. There is no ranked-choice voting.

- Jurisdiction: City of Pleasant Hill
- 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/pleasant-hill-council-4
- 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 7, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 90 out of 100 (Very strong), across 13 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Sue Noack** — Pleasant Hill City Councilmember
- **Quy Tran** — Physician/Clinical Professor

A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.

Sue Noack, a three-term at-large councilmember and three-time former Mayor whose current term ends this cycle, faces first-time candidate Quy Tran for Pleasant Hill's brand-new District 4 seat.

This person would hold one of five district seats on Pleasant Hill's City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Contra Costa County city of about 34,600 residents, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. Pleasant Hill is a General Law City where the Mayor is chosen each year by fellow Council members, not directly elected by voters -- so this seat is simply "Councilmember," regardless of whether its holder later becomes Mayor. The term is four years. Whichever candidate gets the most votes wins -- there is no ranked-choice voting.

This is the first-ever election for Pleasant Hill's District 4 seat. The city moved from at-large to five-district elections under a 2023 Council ordinance responding to a California Voting Rights Act concern; Districts 1, 2, and 5 were elected in 2024, and Districts 3 and 4 -- the last two -- are up for the first time this November. That's why the county's own candidate record lists no incumbent for this race at all, even though Sue Noack is a sitting councilmember: their current at-large term, dating to their 2022 re-election, is one of the two ending this cycle as the city completes its shift to full district representation.

## Sue Noack

A three-term at-large councilmember; their filed ballot designation is "Pleasant Hill City Councilmember." First elected in November 2014 and re-elected in 2018 and 2022, they have served as Mayor three times (2016, 2021, and 2025) and as Vice Mayor in 2020. They graduated from Bucknell University in 1981 with a degree in Business Administration, later earning an MBA from the Wharton School, and spent their early career in banking -- as a Vice President for Bank of America Leasing, then at GATX, where they became Chief Risk Officer and later Senior Vice President of Air Operations. They left the corporate world in 2007 and have since co-founded the Foundation for Pleasant Hill Education, chaired the city's 2010 Measure C Bond Oversight Committee, led the elementary and middle school PTA/PTSA, and helped drive the new Pleasant Hill Library project to its 2022 opening.

**Strengths:** 12 years on the Council across three terms, plus three stints as Mayor. Their civic record includes school foundation co-founder, bond oversight chair, and library project advocate.

**Trade-offs:** They are running for a seat that has never had an election before. Unlike a true incumbent, they have no electoral track record in District 4 to point to.

**Keep in mind:** No campaign-finance filing was located for their 2026 campaign. Pleasant Hill links only to NetFile's generic public-data landing page, not a queryable agency portal. So no fundraising picture exists for either candidate.

## Quy Tran

A first-time candidate; their filed ballot designation is "Physician/Clinical Professor." This dataset made a real, multi-method search for independent depth beyond that self-declared occupation -- the city's own site, Ballotpedia (no page exists for Pleasant Hill's 2026 election), Wikipedia, and general web search (this session's web-search tool budget was also exhausted partway through the attempt), including a direct check of a major local hospital system's physician directory that turned up no matching listing -- and found no campaign website, news coverage, or further biographical detail.

**Strengths:** Not established in the sourcing found for this race. All that is known is their self-declared work as a physician and clinical professor.

**Trade-offs:** They are a first-time candidate with no located public record. Voters have little beyond their name and their stated occupation. They also qualified for the ballot.

**Keep in mind:** This is a sourcing gap, not evidence against them. A real, multi-method search turned up nothing further, and no campaign-finance filing was located for them either.

## Sources

1. [Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Positions Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": the only county-section contest in the document is County Board of Education Areas 2, 4, and 5 (under Schools) -- no Board of Supervisors, row office, or Superior Court seat appears anywhere, consistent with both Supervisor seats up this cycle (Districts 1 and 4) having been decided outright in the June 2026 primary](https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/26Nov03_PositionsUpForElection.pdf)
2. [Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf), the county's post-certification ballot-order-proofing export: shows Area 2 as a 3-candidate contest (Sarah Butler, incumbent; Pamela West; Sibyl Minighini) with each candidate's filed ballot designation and qualification date -- this export omits single-filer contests entirely, which is why Areas 4 and 5 do not appear in it (see cc-candidate-summary-2026)](https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf)
3. [Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Candidate List" (8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf), the county's complete qualified-candidate roster including single-filer contests: confirms Area 2 (Sarah Butler, Pamela West, Sibyl Minighini), Area 4 (Mike Maxwell, sole qualified candidate), and Area 5 (Clyde Henry Lewis, Jr., sole qualified candidate)](https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf)
4. [City of Pleasant Hill -- official "City Council" page: confirms Pleasant Hill is a General Law City with a 5-member Council on staggered 4-year terms, a Council-Manager government, and that the Mayor is "annually selected from among the City Council" rather than directly elected, plus names every sitting member and their district or at-large seat.](https://www.phillca.gov/64/City-Council)
5. [City of Pleasant Hill -- "District Based Election Process" page: the Council's July 17, 2023 ordinance transitioning the city to a five-district map, with Districts 1, 2, and 5 first elected in 2024 and Districts 3 and 4 first elected in 2026 -- the source for why the county's own record shows no incumbent in either 2026 Pleasant Hill race.](https://www.phillca.gov/1557/District-Based-Election-Process)
6. [City of Pleasant Hill -- official "2026 Election" page: the certified candidate table for Districts 3 and 4 with nomination and qualification dates for Jason Seto, Zac Shess, Quy Tran, and Sue Noack, plus Samara Al-Jumaily's unreturned District 3 nomination papers and the election calendar.](https://www.phillca.gov/1681/2026-Election)
7. [City of Pleasant Hill -- official "City Clerk" page: confirms voters converted City Clerk from an elected to an appointed position via a Nov. 4, 2014 ballot measure, effective Dec. 2016 -- why City Clerk is not on the 2026 Pleasant Hill ballot.](https://www.phillca.gov/274/City-Clerk)
8. [City of Pleasant Hill -- official "City Treasurer" page: confirms the Council's Ordinance 969 (adopted June 3, 2024) converted City Treasurer from an elected to an appointed position, effective after the Nov. 2024 election was certified -- why City Treasurer is not on the 2026 Pleasant Hill ballot either, leaving City Council as the city's only elected office.](https://www.phillca.gov/301/City-Treasurer)
9. [Wikipedia's Pleasant Hill, California article -- 2020 census population of 34,613, in Contra Costa County.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Hill,_California)
10. [City of Pleasant Hill -- Sue Noack's own official Council biography page: first elected Nov. 2014, re-elected 2018 and 2022, and Mayor in 2016, 2021, and 2025; a Bucknell and Wharton graduate with a banking and finance career (Bank of America Leasing, then GATX as Chief Risk Officer and SVP of Air Operations) before leaving the corporate world in 2007 for local civic work, including co-founding the Foundation for Pleasant Hill Education and chairing the 2010 Measure C Bond Oversight Committee.](https://www.phillca.gov/1036/Sue-Noack-Mayor)
11. [Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Positions Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": lists Pleasant Hill's only two offices this cycle as District 3 and District 4 Councilmember -- no Mayor, City Clerk, or City Treasurer line item, confirming none of those are directly elected.](https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/26Nov03_PositionsUpForElection.pdf)
12. [Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf), the county's post-filing-deadline, final export: shows both Pleasant Hill contests ON BALLOT with 2 qualified candidates each, each candidate's filed ballot designation and qualification date, and both contest headers reading "Incumbent(s): Vacant / Vacated."](https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/8-27-26_candidatelist_detail_final.pdf)
13. [Contra Costa County Elections Division -- "Candidate List" (8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf), the county's complete qualified-candidate roster: independently confirms the same two 2-candidate Pleasant Hill fields with each candidate's qualification date and time.](https://www.contracostavote.gov/wp-content/uploads/8-14-26_candidatelist_summary_final.pdf)

## The rest of the ballot

Pleasant Hill City Council, District 4 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, "Pleasant Hill City Council, District 4 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/pleasant-hill-council-4 (sources last retrieved September 7, 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.