# Rohnert Park City Council, District 2

Compare records and positions simply between Paul Carey, Michael Desimone, or Linda Tams for Rohnert Park City Council, District 2 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. Council members vote on Rohnert Park's budget, ordinances, and land use. The city has a five-member Council elected by district. Each seat serves a four-year term. This November's ballot includes District 2 and District 5. This dataset could not confirm how Rohnert Park selects its Mayor.

- Jurisdiction: City of Rohnert Park
- 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/rohnert-park-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: September 1, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 81 out of 100 (Strong), across 9 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Paul Carey** — Military Operations Instructor
- **Michael Desimone** — Healthcare Director/Realtor
- **Linda Tams** — Business Owner/Realtor

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

Three candidates are running for Rohnert Park's open District 2 council seat: business owner/realtor Linda Tams, healthcare director/realtor Michael Desimone, and military operations instructor Paul Carey. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins the seat outright -- no runoff.

Councilmembers vote on Rohnert Park's city budget, ordinances, and land use. Rohnert Park is a Sonoma County city of 44,390 residents in the 2020 Census. It is a council-manager city. A professional city manager runs day-to-day operations. The five-member elected Council sets policy. The city moved from at-large to district-based Council elections in 2020. It adopted five districts by Ordinance No. 944. Each seat serves a 4-year term. Only Districts 2 and 5 are up this November. When the other three districts next come up is not confirmed.

This seat is open. The county's own candidate roster lists no incumbent among District 2's three filers. Emily Sanborn is the sitting District 2 councilmember and current Mayor. The city's own Meet My City Council page confirms she did not file for reelection to this seat. Her reasons are not confirmed. All that is known is that she is not on the ballot for it. Santa Rosa posts candidate statements online. Rohnert Park does not do so this cycle. The city's own Candidate Resources page covers biographical materials and Form 700 filings. It says they are available "by appointment only, upon request" through the City Clerk's office.

## Linda Tams

Linda (Khoury) Tams is running for Rohnert Park's open District 2 council seat; their ballot designation is "Business Owner/Realtor." No independently reachable campaign website, news profile, or civic-board record was found for them in this pass beyond that ballot designation and their contact information listed on the city's own Candidate Resources page.

**Strengths:** No independent source describes any record, background, or platform for Tams beyond their ballot designation and the county's certified candidate list.

**Trade-offs:** Voters have no statement, platform, or public record to weigh for them beyond that filing.

**Keep in mind:** A thin public profile here reflects what could be found in this pass -- Rohnert Park does not post candidate statements online this cycle -- not a judgment about their candidacy.

## Michael Desimone

Michael Desimone (their own site renders it "DeSimone") is running for Rohnert Park's open District 2 seat; their ballot designation is "Healthcare Director/Realtor." Their own campaign site describes more than 20 years in healthcare leadership, growing up in the Chicago suburbs, and moving to Rohnert Park in 2022 with their husband, Daniel, who grew up in the area. Their stated platform has four parts: responsive and accountable leadership, responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, thoughtful growth that balances housing and neighborhood character, and a safe, connected community -- with stated priorities on streets, traffic, safety, and local business support. No independent news profile or civic-board record beyond their own campaign site was found for them in this pass.

**Strengths:** A detailed, self-published platform with specific stated priorities, and a stated professional background of more than two decades in healthcare leadership.

**Trade-offs:** All of this background comes from Desimone's own campaign site -- no independent news coverage or record verified it in this pass, and they have no prior local officeholding to point to.

**Keep in mind:** Their platform's four themes are broad governance commitments rather than specific proposals this pass could check against a voting or civic-board record, since Desimone has not previously held local office.

## Paul Carey

Paul Carey is running for Rohnert Park's open District 2 seat; their ballot designation is "Military Operations Instructor." Their own linked campaign page lists three focus areas -- elected-official accessibility, neighborhood revitalization (art, commerce, and beautification), and demystifying how local government actually works -- but no formal biography. No independent news profile or civic-board record was found for them in this pass.

**Strengths:** A stated set of focus areas in their own words, distinct from a bare ballot filing.

**Trade-offs:** Their own campaign page offers no formal biography or detailed platform beyond those three focus areas, and no independent source adds further background.

**Keep in mind:** A thin public profile here reflects what their own campaign has published online as of this pass, not a judgment about their candidacy.

## Review notes

- Paul Carey -- own linked campaign page for Rohnert Park City Council District 2: lists three stated focus areas (elected-official accessibility, neighborhood revitalization, and demystifying local government) with no formal biography as of retrieval. and Michael Desimone (rendered "DeSimone" on his own site) -- own campaign site for Rohnert Park City Council District 2: describes 20-plus years in healthcare leadership, his 2022 move to Rohnert Park with his husband, and a four-point platform (responsive/accountable leadership, responsible stewardship, thoughtful growth, and a safe/connected community). may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

## Sources

1. [Sonoma County Registrar of Voters -- "Local Candidates Who Have Filed," November 3, 2026 General Election: lists exactly two Rohnert Park "CITY CONTESTS" -- City Council Districts 2 and 5, each Elect 1 -- with per-contest candidate name, ballot designation, qualification date, and incumbent flag; carries the page's sitewide "not final or official" disclaimer. Page last updated 8/17/26, unchanged on a live re-check 2026-09-01 after both the regular (Aug. 7) and extended (Aug. 12) nomination deadlines had passed.](https://sonomacounty.gov/administrative-support-and-fiscal-services/registrar-of-voters/elections/november-3-2026-general-election-local-candidates-who-have-filed)
2. [City of Rohnert Park -- own "Candidate Resources" page: independently names the identical six-candidate, two-district field with each candidate's own contact information, and states the nomination period for the November 3, 2026 election "is officially closed." Notes that Form 700 and candidate biographical materials are available "by appointment only, upon request" through the City Clerk's office -- the city does not post candidate statements online for this cycle.](https://www.rpcity.ca.gov/735/Candidate-Resources)
3. [City of Rohnert Park -- own "City Elections" page: states directly that the November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election includes a District 2 and a District 5 City Council seat, each a 4-year term, alongside Measure K (a citywide ballot measure; measures are descoped from display in this dataset).](https://www.rpcity.ca.gov/594/City-Elections)
4. [City of Rohnert Park -- own "By-District Elections Transition" page: confirms the city adopted five City Council districts by Ordinance No. 944 on Feb. 25, 2020, transitioning from at-large elections after seven public hearings; references a staggered "election order of each district" without stating the full six-year rotation schedule.](https://www.rpcity.ca.gov/734/By-District-Elections-Transition)
5. [City of Rohnert Park -- own "Meet My City Council" page: independently confirms Susan Hollingsworth Adams as the sitting District 5 councilmember (corroborating the county roster's incumbent flag) and Emily Sanborn as the city's current Mayor while representing District 2 -- no candidate named Sanborn appears among District 2's three 2026 filers.](https://www.rpcity.ca.gov/810/Meet-My-City-Council)
6. [Wikipedia -- "Rohnert Park, California": used narrowly for the 2020 Census population (44,390) and the city's council-manager government structure -- does not cover the 2026 election.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohnert_Park,_California)
7. [A documented financial-disclosure access gap: Rohnert Park's own "Campaign Statement Filings" page links a SouthTech Hosting "Web Retrieval" portal for statements filed on or after July 17, 2023, and a companion "eCampaign" filer portal. Both load (HTTP 200), but a direct inspection of the served HTML shows an ASP.NET WebForms application driven entirely by client-side __VIEWSTATE/__PostBack controls, with no static candidate or filer data and no URL-parameter or REST-API path this session's fetch tooling could reach (no browser extension connected this pass) -- the same client-side-gated pattern documented elsewhere in this dataset for NetFile-hosted portals, on different vendor infrastructure. No FPPC Form 460, 470, or 501 could be confirmed present or absent for any of the six candidates.](https://www.southtechhosting.com/RohnertParkCity/CampaignDocsWebRetrieval/)
8. [Michael Desimone (rendered "DeSimone" on his own site) -- own campaign site for Rohnert Park City Council District 2: describes 20-plus years in healthcare leadership, his 2022 move to Rohnert Park with his husband, and a four-point platform (responsive/accountable leadership, responsible stewardship, thoughtful growth, and a safe/connected community).](https://www.desimoneforcitycouncil.com)
9. [Paul Carey -- own linked campaign page for Rohnert Park City Council District 2: lists three stated focus areas (elected-official accessibility, neighborhood revitalization, and demystifying local government) with no formal biography as of retrieval.](https://linktr.ee/carey4district2)

## The rest of the ballot

Rohnert Park 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, "Rohnert Park City Council, District 2 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/rohnert-park-council-2 (sources last retrieved September 1, 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.