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Mayor of Poway

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City of Poway

Mayor of Poway

This person presides over City Council meetings and represents Poway publicly. They vote as one of five members on the budget and city laws. An appointed city manager runs daily government. Poway's mayor is the only council member elected citywide. The other members are elected by district. The term is four years.

Poway has three candidates for mayor. They are incumbent Steve Vaus and challengers Jenny Maeda and Dellena Olps. All voters citywide can vote in this race. Whoever gets the most votes on November 3 wins, and there is no runoff.

The mayor presides over City Council meetings and represents Poway publicly, but votes as one of five members on the budget and city ordinances -- day-to-day government runs through an appointed city manager. Poway's mayor is the only council member elected citywide; the other four represent numbered districts. Poway adopted district-based council elections in 2017, with Districts 1 and 3 first elected in 2018 and Districts 2 and 4 first elected in 2020. The term is four years.

Vaus is seeking a fourth term after twelve years as mayor and two years on the council before that, campaigning on continuity -- public safety, low taxes, and steady leadership through crises including the 2019 attack on the Chabad of Poway and the pandemic's threat to local restaurants. Both challengers are running to change who leads the city more than what it does day to day: Maeda, a sitting District 4 councilmember of about two years, wants term limits and a return to what she calls the city's rural roots; Olps, a first-time candidate and longtime community volunteer, is running mainly on one concrete issue -- expanding public transit into her own underserved neighborhood.

Steve Vaus

Steve Vaus, 74, is Poway's incumbent mayor, seeking a fourth term. He has lived in District 2 for 33 years. He was elected to the City Council in 2012 and first elected mayor in 2014. He says Poway has low crime, strong finances, and the region's lowest sales tax. He wants to fight state control of local choices and protect open space. He also wants to ease traffic with better signals and ban standalone AI data centers. Outside politics, he is a Grammy and Emmy award winner and recording artist.

Jenny Maeda

Jenny Maeda, 45, is a homeschool cooperative teacher and challenger for Poway mayor. She wants term limits for council members and the mayor. She supports Proposition FF, a 1988 measure. It requires a public vote before rezoning open land to denser uses. She also wants a new citizen advisory committee. She has held Poway's District 4 council seat since November 2024. She has lived in the district for 14 years.

Dellena Olps

Dellena Olps, 40, is a challenger who has lived in District 4 for 14 years. She volunteers at the Poway Historical Society and her children's elementary school. She previously worked for the state of California. She first worked in the Department of Corrections. She then worked in the Employment Development Department's tax division. She is running mainly to expand public transit into underserved neighborhoods. That includes her own Garden Road area. She has watched and sometimes spoken at City Council meetings for years. She also helped map the city's council districts when Poway moved from at large elections.

Your pick

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

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