# San Mateo City Council, District 1

Compare records and positions simply between Taso Zografos or Lisa Diaz Nash for San Mateo City Council, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would represent one of San Mateo's five council districts. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land-use decisions. San Mateo has about 105,600 residents. The term is four years. The council picks its own Mayor and Deputy Mayor each year. They are not elected separately.

- Jurisdiction: City of San Mateo
- 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-mateo-city-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: 84 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

- **Taso Zografos** — Business Executive / Engineer
- **Lisa Diaz Nash** — Councilmember, District 1 · Incumbent

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

Incumbent Councilmember Lisa Diaz Nash, first elected to represent District 1 in the city's inaugural district election in November 2022, faces business executive and engineer Taso Zografos as she seeks a second term.

The winner serves a 4-year term on San Mateo's City Council. The council has five district representatives. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. The city has about 105,600 residents. San Mateo moved from at-large to district elections in 2022. The Mayor and Deputy Mayor are chosen each year by the council from its own members. Neither is elected separately. Council races have no primary. Diaz Nash and Zografos go straight to the November 3 ballot.

Diaz Nash describes herself as a full-time councilmember. She centers her campaign on core city services. Those include street and pothole repair. She also names protecting 911 response and fire and paramedic staffing. She adds traffic safety for bikes and people on foot. Clean parks and public spaces round out her list. Zografos is a business executive and engineer. He has more than 40 years running companies. He frames his campaign around fiscal oversight. He wants an independent financial review. He wants to cut what he calls wasteful spending. He also names public safety and traffic congestion. He backs affordable housing for teachers, nurses, and young families.

## Lisa Diaz Nash

Diaz Nash works full-time as the District 1 councilmember and lists a city email address (ldiaznash@cityofsanmateo.org) on her campaign site. Her site does not detail her pre-council career or background beyond her current officeholder role.

**Strengths:** A full term of incumbent experience and direct, hands-on familiarity with the city budget and council process.

**Trade-offs:** Her campaign site offers little biographical detail beyond her current role, so voters have limited independent basis to evaluate what she did before joining the council.

**Keep in mind:** Her platform is built around core municipal services (streets, safety, parks) rather than a specific, itemized record of first-term accomplishments -- this dataset could not independently verify one beyond her own campaign framing.

## Taso Zografos

Zografos describes himself as a San Mateo County business leader and community advocate with more than 40 years building companies at the intersection of technology, infrastructure, and public service. His site does not name his current employer or a specific business.

**Strengths:** A long private-sector track record and a stated pattern of responding directly to residents' calls about neighborhood issues, per his own account.

**Trade-offs:** No prior appointed or elected city service is mentioned on his site, which also does not name his current company, limiting independent verification of his business background.

**Keep in mind:** His site's navigation still promotes stale 'Write in Taso!' copy -- the county's certified roster and the city's own candidates page both confirm he qualified for a printed-ballot spot, not write-in status.

## Review notes

- Lisa Diaz Nash's own campaign site (lisaforsanmateo.com): identifies her as the sitting District 1 councilmember and full-time officeholder (city email ldiaznash@cityofsanmateo.org listed), her platform (street/pothole repair, 911 and fire/paramedic response, traffic and bike/pedestrian safety, clean parks and public spaces); footer publishes FPPC ID 1483665 and Taso Zografos's own campaign site (tasoforsanmateo.com): describes him as a San Mateo County business leader and community advocate with more than 40 years building companies at the intersection of technology, infrastructure, and public service; platform (safe neighborhoods, traffic management, affordable housing, fiscal responsibility, essential services); publishes no FPPC ID this session could find; its navigation still promotes 'Write in Taso!' messaging, treated as stale leftover copy given his confirmed printed-ballot qualification per the county roster and the city's own candidates 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 seven qualified City of San Mateo City Council candidates across Districts 1, 3, and 5, 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 Mateo -- official '2026 City Council Candidates' page (cityofsanmateo.org/4305): lists all seven qualified candidates for Districts 1, 3, and 5 in the order set by the county and Secretary of State's August 13, 2026 randomized-alphabet drawing, and confirms the November 3, 2026 election date](https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4305)
3. [City of San Mateo -- official 'Meet Your Council' page: names Adam Loraine (District 5) as Mayor, Nicole Fernandez (District 2) as Deputy Mayor, and Lisa Diaz Nash (District 1), Danielle Cwirko-Godycki (District 4), and Rob Newsom Jr. (District 3) as the remaining council members](https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/166/Meet-Your-Council)
4. [City of San Mateo -- official 'District Elections' page: the city moved from at-large to five City Council districts starting in November 2022; Districts 1, 3, and 5 were elected in November 2022 and are up again in November 2026, while Districts 2 and 4 were elected in November 2024; council members must live in the district they represent](https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/4537/District-Elections)
5. [Wikipedia's San Mateo, California article -- confirms the council-manager government structure, the five-member City Council's staggered four-year terms, and the city's population (105,661 at the 2020 census; a 103,337 Census Bureau estimate as of July 1, 2025)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mateo,_California)
6. [This dataset's own documented record of a dedicated, unsuccessful attempt to retrieve campaign-finance filings for all seven City of San Mateo City Council candidates: California's Cal-Access filer search (cal-access.sos.ca.gov) returned only an Incapsula bot-detection interstitial for every query attempted this session (via both WebFetch and direct curl), with no live browser session available in this worktree to work around it. Documents the absence of a reachable financial-disclosure source for these seven candidates, not any of their actual finances.](https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/)
7. [Lisa Diaz Nash's own campaign site (lisaforsanmateo.com): identifies her as the sitting District 1 councilmember and full-time officeholder (city email ldiaznash@cityofsanmateo.org listed), her platform (street/pothole repair, 911 and fire/paramedic response, traffic and bike/pedestrian safety, clean parks and public spaces); footer publishes FPPC ID 1483665](https://www.lisaforsanmateo.com)
8. [Taso Zografos's own campaign site (tasoforsanmateo.com): describes him as a San Mateo County business leader and community advocate with more than 40 years building companies at the intersection of technology, infrastructure, and public service; platform (safe neighborhoods, traffic management, affordable housing, fiscal responsibility, essential services); publishes no FPPC ID this session could find; its navigation still promotes 'Write in Taso!' messaging, treated as stale leftover copy given his confirmed printed-ballot qualification per the county roster and the city's own candidates page](https://www.tasoforsanmateo.com)

## The rest of the ballot

San Mateo 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 Mateo City Council, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/san-mateo-city-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.