# San Bruno City Council, District 1 Compare records and positions simply between Jennifer Blanco or Kingsley Ma for San Bruno City Council, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of San Bruno's four district-elected City Council seats. A separately elected, citywide Mayor also serves on the council. An appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of San Bruno - 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/san-bruno-council-1 - 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: 79 out of 100 (Mixed), across 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Jennifer Blanco** — Juvenile Justice Commissioner - **Kingsley Ma** — School Board President A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. District 1 is an open seat: Vice Mayor Sandy Alvarez, its incumbent since the district's creation in 2022, didn't file for reelection -- she's endorsed one of the two candidates running to replace her. Juvenile Justice Commissioner Jennifer Blanco and School Board President Kingsley Ma are running for the seat. The winner serves a 4-year term as one of four district representatives on San Bruno's City Council, alongside a separately, citywide-elected Mayor. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use on a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. San Bruno council races have no primary -- Blanco and Ma go straight to the November 3 ballot, and whoever gets the most votes wins outright. Alvarez -- the outgoing Vice Mayor -- has endorsed Blanco, along with County Supervisor David Canepa and a carpenters' union. Both candidates draw on years of local governance experience, but in different arenas: Blanco's is 17 years on the local school board, while Ma's filed ballot designation identifies them as a sitting school board president. This dataset could confirm real, sourced detail on Blanco's record and platform; it could not, despite genuine effort, independently confirm comparable detail on Ma beyond their name, filed occupation, and qualification date -- see Financial info and the note below. ## Jennifer Blanco Blanco is a lifelong San Bruno resident who has served 17 years on the San Bruno Park Elementary School District's Board of Trustees. Her campaign centers on four commitments: transparent government, fiscal responsibility, public safety, and what she calls "thoughtful growth" -- preserving the city's character while it develops. She's endorsed by outgoing District 1 Vice Mayor Sandy Alvarez, County Supervisor David J. Canepa, the North Coast States Carpenters Union, and a list of named District 1 residents. **Strengths:** 17 years of hands-on service on a public board. She also has a direct endorsement from the outgoing district incumbent. That is a real signal of continuity, not just a name on a list. **Trade-offs:** Her record is in school-district oversight, not city government. A school board and a city council face different budgets, land-use powers, and the people they serve. **Keep in mind:** Her site names her endorsers but gives no detail beyond the four broad pillars. If growth is your deciding issue, ask her campaign what thoughtful growth means for specific San Bruno projects. ## Kingsley Ma Ma is named on both San Mateo County's certified candidate roster and the City of San Bruno's own Elections page, which lists their filed ballot designation as "School Board President" and confirms they filed and qualified on August 12, 2026. Beyond that, this dataset made a genuine, multi-method effort to find independent depth on Ma and came up short: their own campaign site (votekingsleyma.com) is a client-rendered, image-heavy page that returned no extractable biography or platform text despite repeated attempts, including its likely "About Me" and "Endorsements" sub-pages and a linked Donorbox donation page; no independent news profile turned up in this session's searches either, and the San Mateo Daily Journal -- the county's own paper of record -- blocked every direct fetch attempted against its site this session. **Strengths:** Their filed title as a sitting school board president points to real local governance experience. That is close to Blanco's own record. **Trade-offs:** No platform positions or fuller biography could be confirmed beyond that one filed title. That is a gap in the record, not a judgment on Ma. **Keep in mind:** Their campaign site, votekingsleyma.com, is worth a visit if you are deciding this race. It likely holds more detail than what is listed here. ## Review notes - Jennifer Blanco's own campaign site, Jennifer Blanco's own campaign site (jennifermblanco.com): describes her as a lifelong San Bruno resident with 17 years on the San Bruno Park Elementary School District's Board of Trustees, running on transparent government, fiscal responsibility, public safety, and 'thoughtful growth'; footer publishes Committee ID 1479842, and Kingsley Ma's own campaign site (votekingsleyma.com): a client-rendered, image-heavy page from which this dataset could not extract readable biography or platform text despite repeated attempts at its root page, likely 'About Me' and 'Endorsements' sub-paths, and its linked Donorbox donation page may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources. ## Sources 1. [San Mateo County ACRE -- Roster of Candidates, Qualified Candidates Only, November 3, 2026 General Election (CFMR009), dated 2026-08-25: the county's own certified candidate list, naming all five qualified San Bruno candidates -- Mayor and City Council Districts 1 and 4 -- their filed occupations/ballot designations, and qualification dates, each flagged 'On Ballot: Yes, Vote for 1'](https://smcacre.gov/system/files/2026-08/52_candidateroster0825.pdf) 2. [City of San Bruno -- official "Elections" page (City Clerk's Office): confirms the Nov. 3, 2026 general municipal election covers Mayor and City Council Districts 1 and 4, lists the nomination period (July 13 -- Aug. 7, 2026), and names all five candidates with their filing and qualification dates -- Rico Medina (Mayor, filed 08/03/26), Jennifer M. Blanco and Kingsley Ma (District 1, filed 08/10/26 and 08/12/26), and Auros Harman and Marty P. Medina (District 4, filed 08/05/26 and 07/30/26) -- and links the city's NetFile campaign-finance disclosure portal](https://www.sanbruno.ca.gov/229/Elections) 3. [City of San Bruno -- official "Elected Officials" page: confirms the five-member City Council structure, that Ordinance 1907 established the city's first by-district council map, that Districts 1 and 4 were first elected by district in November 2022 (four-year terms, up again in 2026) while Districts 2 and 3 were first elected in November 2024 (up in 2028), and that the Mayor is 'elected every two years' at-large rather than chosen by the council; names current officeholders by district](https://www.sanbruno.ca.gov/596/Elected-Officials) 4. [Wikipedia's San Bruno, California article -- confirms San Bruno is 'one of the few cities in San Mateo County with an independently elected mayor' (rather than one chosen by the council), its council-manager government with an appointed City Manager, a 2020 census population of 43,908, and an incorporation date of December 23, 1914](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno,_California) 5. [This dataset's own documented record of a dedicated, unsuccessful attempt to retrieve campaign-finance filings for all five San Bruno candidates: the city's own NetFile public portal (public.netfile.com/pub2/?AID=BRU, redirecting to netfile.com/public/BRU/campaign) is a client-rendered single-page app that returned only the static application shell for every fetch attempted this session, including its search-entities sub-page, with no live browser session available in this worktree to work around it. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these five candidates, not any of their actual finances.](https://netfile.com/public/BRU/campaign) 6. [Jennifer Blanco's own campaign site (jennifermblanco.com): describes her as a lifelong San Bruno resident with 17 years on the San Bruno Park Elementary School District's Board of Trustees, running on transparent government, fiscal responsibility, public safety, and 'thoughtful growth'; footer publishes Committee ID 1479842](https://www.jennifermblanco.com) 7. [Jennifer Blanco's own campaign site -- dedicated endorsements page: lists outgoing District 1 incumbent Vice Mayor Sandy Alvarez, County Supervisor David J. Canepa (District 5), and the North Coast States Carpenters Union as official endorsers, plus a list of named District 1 resident endorsers](https://www.jennifermblanco.com/view-endorsements) 8. [Kingsley Ma's own campaign site (votekingsleyma.com): a client-rendered, image-heavy page from which this dataset could not extract readable biography or platform text despite repeated attempts at its root page, likely 'About Me' and 'Endorsements' sub-paths, and its linked Donorbox donation page -- confirms only that the site exists and names the candidate; documents a genuine, unresolved depth gap on this candidate, not an unattempted one](https://www.votekingsleyma.com) ## The rest of the ballot San Bruno City Council, District 1 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, "San Bruno City Council, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-bruno-council-1 (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.