Skip to main content

City of Redlands · Statewide General Election

Redlands City Council, District 5

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

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 holds your district's seat on Redlands' 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government -- an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. A 4-year term. Redlands does not directly elect a Mayor: the council selects one of its own members to serve in that role on a rotating basis (currently Mario Saucedo, District 3, since 2024). The city's five districts elect in staggered groups -- Districts 2 and 4 last went before voters in November 2024; Districts 1, 3, and 5 are up this November.

Incumbent Paul Barich, a former Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, is the only candidate who qualified for the City Council District 5 seat on the November 3, 2026 ballot -- an uncontested race.

This person would hold District 5's seat on Redlands' 5-member, district-elected City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government -- an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. A 4-year term. Redlands does not directly elect a Mayor; the council selects one of its own members for that role on a rotating basis -- Barich held it himself for the 2021-2022 term.

Barich, first elected in 2014 and twice re-elected, is seeking a fourth term unopposed; the city's own qualified-candidates document lists no other filer for District 5.

Paul Barich

Paul Barich is Redlands' incumbent District 5 councilmember, first elected in 2014 and twice re-elected (2018, 2022). He served as Mayor from 2021 to 2022 and as Mayor Pro Tempore from 2022 to 2024. A graduate of Redlands High School (1972) and UCLA (1977), he taught for one year before opening a downtown Redlands insurance agency in August 1979, focused on health, life, Medicare, and 401(k) plans. He has been active with the Optimist Club since 1983 and the Redlands Community Music Association since 1992, served as past president of the Boys and Girls Club and the Redlands Chamber of Commerce, and helped bring back the "Shop Redlands First" campaign. His filed ballot designation is "Councilmember / Business Owner."

Strengths

Three terms plus a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem stint -- the most senior of the three 2026 incumbents; four decades running a local business alongside civic-club leadership.

Trade-offs

No independent news coverage of his council record was found; financial info could not be retrieved. No opponent means no comparative choice this cycle.

Keep in mind

Twelve years on the council, including time as Mayor, is a long tenure -- weigh it as continuity, or as a long incumbency, depending on your view.

Source review: Very strong (90/100) · 7 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- statewide "Report_OfficesUpForElection.pdf" (the same document as sb-offices-up-2026 above, a different section): its "City" category lists "City of Redlands, Member, City Council, District 1" / "...District 3" / "...District 5," each "Number to be elected: 1" and "Term (years): 4" -- no Mayor line anywhere for Redlands, and Districts 2 and 4 do not appear
  • uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov (opens in a new tab)San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- statewide "Report_CandidateList.pdf" (the same document as sb-candidate-list-2026 above, a different section): within its "City of Redlands" section (pp. 169-172 of 249), three contests appear, each "Number to be elected: 1" -- District 1 (3 candidates: Denise Davis - Incumbent, Doug Gonzales, Andrew Hoder), District 3 (1 candidate: Mario Saucedo - Incumbent), and District 5 (1 candidate: Paul Barich - Incumbent), each with ballot designations as filed
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- live "Elections" page (redlands.gov/elections/): states the three contested council districts (1, 3, 5), the candidate filing period (July 13 - August 7, 2026), and links both the city's own qualified-candidates document and its Notice of Municipal Election, plus the city's NetFile campaign-disclosure portal
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- "Council Member Candidates Qualified for 11/3/26" (as of 8/7/26): names all five qualified candidates across the city's three November 2026 council districts with phone, email, and their intention-statement, papers-pulled, papers-filed, and qualified-for-ballot dates, in agreement with the county's own candidate-filing report
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- "City Council District Maps" page: confirms the city's 5-district structure and the staggered election cycle -- Districts 2 and 4 elected November 2024, Districts 1, 3, and 5 this November -- with maps for each district adopted March 15, 2022
  • redlands.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Redlands -- District 5's own official bio page for Council Member Paul Barich: first elected 2014, re-elected 2018 and 2022, previously Mayor 2021-2022 and Mayor Pro Tempore 2022-2024; his downtown Redlands insurance agency (since 1979) and his community involvement
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A documented financial-info gap, not a claim about any candidate's fundraising: the California Secretary of State's CAL-ACCESS filer search was blocked outright by an Incapsula bot wall on every attempt, including a direct fetch of Denise Davis's own filer-detail URL by the FPPC ID her campaign site discloses; the City of Redlands' own local NetFile portal (agency ID RDL) is a JavaScript single-page app with no static content and no discoverable public API endpoint to this session's automated fetchers

Last updated August 31, 2026.