# San Bruno City Council, District 4

Compare records and positions simply between Auros Harman or Marty Medina for San Bruno City Council, District 4 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-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 1, 2026
- Source-objectivity score: 81 out of 100 (Strong), across 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **Auros Harman** — Planning Commissioner / Engineer
- **Marty Medina** — San Bruno City Councilmember District 4 · Incumbent

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

Incumbent Marty Medina -- a former Public Works Inspector on the council since 2015 -- faces Planning Commissioner Auros Harman for the District 4 seat, in a race where the challenger has assembled an unusually deep bench of endorsements from sitting and former elected officials across the Peninsula.

The winner serves a 4-year term. The seat is one of four district seats on San Bruno's City Council. A Mayor is elected separately, citywide. The council votes on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. It is a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. San Bruno council races have no primary. Medina and Harman go straight to the November 3 ballot. Whoever gets the most votes wins outright.

Both candidates campaign on infrastructure and public safety. They come at it from different angles. Medina is a registered No Party Preference voter. He points to his decade-plus as a city Public Works Inspector. He says local government should focus on "solving problems, delivering services, protecting taxpayers... not on partisan politics." Harman has been a Planning Commissioner since 2019. He centers his campaign on budget transparency and what he calls the city's budget deficit. He also names aging infrastructure and climate and disaster preparedness. His endorsements span Congress, the state legislature, and San Bruno's own current and former officials.

## Marty Medina

Medina has lived in San Bruno more than 20 years and is raising his son in the community. He worked as a San Bruno Public Works Inspector for over a decade -- "making sure our infrastructure was built right," as he puts it -- before joining the City Council in 2015; he was elected to District 4's inaugural four-year district term in 2022. He's registered No Party Preference and frames his campaign around fiscal management, infrastructure, neighborhood safety, downtown revitalization, and treating local government as nonpartisan problem-solving.

**Strengths:** Over a decade in the city's own Public Works department before his council service. That gives him direct working knowledge of the infrastructure he would keep overseeing as a councilmember.

**Trade-offs:** His campaign site lists no endorsements at all. Harman lists many federal, state, and local officials. That is not a weakness in itself, but it is a difference voters can weigh.

**Keep in mind:** He has been on the council since 2015, nine years counting this term. He served at-large first. He has held District 4 since the city moved to district elections in 2022. His tenure predates the current district system.

## Auros Harman

Harman moved to the West Coast in 1999 and became a San Bruno Belle Air neighborhood homeowner in 2017; he works in the renewable-energy sector. He's served as a Planning Commissioner since 2019, and describes his campaign priorities as public safety staffing, budget transparency in the face of a city deficit, addressing deteriorating roads and sidewalks before they become hazards, climate and disaster preparedness (stormwater, flood, and wildfire risk), and balancing new housing with infrastructure and neighborhood character. His endorsement list is unusually deep for a city council race: Rep. Kevin Mullin, former Rep. Anna Eshoo, State Sen. Josh Becker, former State Sen. Jerry Hill, former State Controller Steve Westly, Assemblymember Marc Berman, sitting Councilmember Michael Salazar, former Mayor Jim Ruane, former Police Chief Ryan Johansen, retired Fire Chief Dave Cresta, dozens of other local officials, and groups including the Housing Action Coalition.

**Strengths:** Six-plus years of direct land-use experience on the Planning Commission. His endorsements run from Congress to San Bruno's own council and former public-safety chiefs.

**Trade-offs:** He has held no prior elected office. The Planning Commission is an appointed advisory body. It does not make policy or hold budget authority.

**Keep in mind:** His platform names a city budget deficit as a top concern. Voters focused on fiscal management should weigh that against Medina's own pitch. Medina points to years of insider Public Works experience.

## Review notes

- Auros Harman's own campaign site, Auros Harman's own campaign site (auros.org): describes him as a renewable-energy-sector professional and San Bruno Belle Air homeowner since 2017, a Planning Commissioner since 2019, running on public safety staffing, budget transparency, aging infrastructure, climate/disaster preparedness, and balanced housing growth; footer publishes FPPC filer ID 1483588, and Marty Medina's own campaign site (martymedina4sanbruno.com, which redirects to a WordPress-hosted campaign blog): describes him as a 20-plus-year San Bruno resident and a San Bruno Public Works Inspector for over a decade before his council service, registered No Party Preference, running on fiscal management, infrastructure, neighborhood safety, and downtown revitalization; publishes FPPC filer ID 1494302 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. [Marty Medina's own campaign site (martymedina4sanbruno.com, which redirects to a WordPress-hosted campaign blog): describes him as a 20-plus-year San Bruno resident and a San Bruno Public Works Inspector for over a decade before his council service, registered No Party Preference, running on fiscal management, infrastructure, neighborhood safety, and downtown revitalization; publishes FPPC filer ID 1494302](https://martymedina4sanbruno.com)
7. [Auros Harman's own campaign site (auros.org): describes him as a renewable-energy-sector professional and San Bruno Belle Air homeowner since 2017, a Planning Commissioner since 2019, running on public safety staffing, budget transparency, aging infrastructure, climate/disaster preparedness, and balanced housing growth; footer publishes FPPC filer ID 1483588](https://www.auros.org)
8. [Auros Harman's own campaign site -- dedicated endorsements page, independently re-fetched and confirmed: Congressman Kevin Mullin, former Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, State Senator Josh Becker, former State Senator Jerry Hill, former State Controller Steve Westly, Assemblymember Marc Berman, sitting San Bruno Councilmember Michael Salazar, former San Bruno Mayor Jim Ruane, former San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen, San Bruno's retired Fire Chief Dave Cresta, dozens of other local elected officials and community/planning-commission leaders, and the Housing Action Coalition and Peninsula For Everyone](https://www.auros.org/view-endorsements)

## The rest of the ballot

San Bruno 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, "San Bruno City Council, District 4 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-bruno-council-4 (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.
