# Mayor of San Bruno Rico Medina is running uncontested for Mayor of San Bruno. Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. San Bruno directly elects its Mayor, at-large. Most San Mateo County cities let the council choose the mayor instead. San Bruno's Mayor presides over the five-member council. The Mayor votes on city laws, the budget, and land use. Four district Councilmembers also serve on the council. The term is two 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-mayor - 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: 87 out of 100 (Strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Rico Medina** — Mayor, City of San Bruno · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Only one candidate qualified for this seat. Incumbent Mayor Rico Medina -- on the City Council since 2005 and elected Mayor in 2024 -- runs unopposed for a new 2-year term, so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome. San Bruno is one of the few San Mateo County cities with an independently, at-large elected Mayor, rather than one chosen by the council from among its own members. The Mayor presides over the 5-member council-manager government -- city ordinances, the budget, and land use -- alongside four district Councilmembers and an appointed City Manager. The term is two years, shorter than the 4-year terms district Councilmembers serve. With no opponent, the useful question is what the officeholder has done, not who to choose. Medina has been on the council for two decades and has now led the city through several high-profile crises as Mayor. ## Rico Medina A third-generation San Bruno resident, Medina worked in the city's Parks and Recreation department before joining the City Council in 2005; he was elected Mayor in November 2024 for a term expiring December 2026. His campaign frames this term around "crisis management experience and community recovery" -- he cites his response to the 2010 PG&E natural-gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes in San Bruno, a shooting at YouTube's San Bruno campus, a shooting at Tanforan mall, and a tear-gas incident affecting local schools that fed a subsequent social-justice debate. "As your mayor, I will continue to make sure San Bruno is heard and represented," he says on his campaign site, asking voters directly for "re-election this November." **Strengths:** Two decades of council experience plus direct, cited crisis leadership through some of the city's highest-profile emergencies of the past 15 years. **Trade-offs:** Running unopposed means his handling of those same crises -- including the PG&E explosion recovery and the tear-gas incident -- faces no organized counter-argument this cycle. **Keep in mind:** His stated goal is for San Bruno "not to just merely recover but thrive" -- a forward-looking frame for a second mayoral term with no specific new initiatives detailed on his campaign site beyond that framing. ## Review notes - Rico Medina's own campaign site (RicoMedina.com): describes him as a third-generation San Bruno resident with prior service in the city's Parks and Recreation department and on the City Council, cites his response to the 2010 PG&E pipeline explosion, a shooting at YouTube's San Bruno campus, a shooting at Tanforan mall, and a tear-gas incident affecting local schools as his record, and directly asks voters for 're-election this November'; no FPPC filer ID is published anywhere on the site may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide 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. [Rico Medina's own campaign site (RicoMedina.com): describes him as a third-generation San Bruno resident with prior service in the city's Parks and Recreation department and on the City Council, cites his response to the 2010 PG&E pipeline explosion, a shooting at YouTube's San Bruno campus, a shooting at Tanforan mall, and a tear-gas incident affecting local schools as his record, and directly asks voters for 're-election this November'; no FPPC filer ID is published anywhere on the site](https://www.RicoMedina.com) ## The rest of the ballot Mayor of San Bruno 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, "Mayor of San Bruno — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-bruno-mayor (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.