# Seal Beach City Council, District 1 Compare records and positions simply between Scott Davis, Matt Smith, Perla Mendoza, or Matthew Terry for Seal Beach City Council, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds District 1's seat on Seal Beach's five-member City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. An appointed city manager runs daily operations. Seal Beach is a charter city with a council-manager government. The Mayor is not separately elected. Each year, councilmembers choose one of their own to be Mayor. They choose another member to be Mayor Pro Tem. The term is four years. Members are limited to two terms, or 8 years. - Jurisdiction: City of Seal Beach - 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/seal-beach-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: August 31, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 88 out of 100 (Strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Scott Davis** — Real Estate Entrepreneur - **Matt Smith** — Sports Broadcaster - **Perla Mendoza** — CEO/Nonprofit Boardmember - **Matthew Terry** — Architect A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Four candidates -- Scott Davis, Matt Smith, Perla Mendoza, and Matthew Terry -- are running for Seal Beach City Council District 1, an open seat: sitting incumbent Joe Kalmick did not file for reelection. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. This person holds District 1's seat on Seal Beach's 5-member City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use, alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Seal Beach is a charter city with a council-manager government. The Mayor isn't separately elected -- each year, councilmembers choose one of their own to serve as Mayor and another as Mayor Pro Tem. The term is four years, and members are limited to two terms (8 years). The county's own record flags Joe Kalmick as District 1's sitting incumbent, but he does not appear among the four qualified candidates here -- the same county document separately lists a "Joe Kalmick" qualifying for a Coast Community College District trustee seat under the ballot designation "City of Seal Beach City Councilmember," consistent with (though not independent confirmation of) the sitting councilmember seeking a different office rather than reelection this cycle. Beyond each candidate's filed occupation, no independent profile, platform statement, or news coverage was found for any of the four in this pass despite a real, time-boxed search effort -- documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation. ## Scott Davis Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Real Estate Entrepreneur." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. **Strengths:** A real-estate entrepreneurship background, which could be relevant to a council seat's land-use and local-development decisions. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed occupation, and no record of prior elected office was found. **Keep in mind:** CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Matt Smith Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Sports Broadcaster." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. **Strengths:** A media and public-communication background, which could translate into public-facing council work. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed occupation, and no record of prior elected office was found. **Keep in mind:** CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Perla Mendoza Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "CEO/Nonprofit Boardmember." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. **Strengths:** Executive and nonprofit-board experience, which could carry over to budget oversight and organizational management on the council. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed occupation, and no record of prior elected office was found. **Keep in mind:** CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Matthew Terry Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Architect." No campaign site, official city biography, or news coverage describing their background or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort. **Strengths:** An architecture background, which could be directly relevant to a council seat's land-use, planning, and development decisions. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found in this pass, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed occupation, and no record of prior elected office was found. **Keep in mind:** CAL-ACCESS's filer-search tool was not checked in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Sources 1. [OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Seal Beach section (pages 154-156 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Member City Council District 1 (Contest 5231) as the city's sole November 2026 race, Vote for 1, 4 qualified candidates, none of them the incumbent of record (Joe Kalmick) -- and that no other Seal Beach contest appears anywhere in the document](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [City of Seal Beach -- City Council page: confirms the sitting 5-member, district-elected body (Joe Kalmick, District 1; Ben Wong, District 2; Lisa Landau, District 3; Patty Senecal, District 4; Nathan Steele, District 5), the annually rotating Mayor/Mayor Pro Tem chosen from among councilmembers (2026 Mayor Pro Tem: Ben Wong), and 4-year staggered terms](https://www.sealbeachca.gov/Government/City-Council) 3. [City of Seal Beach -- Voter & Election Information page: states Districts 1, 3, and 5 opened a nomination period for the 2026 cycle (July 13-August 7, 2026) and that councilmembers serve 4-year terms with a two-term (8-year) limit -- though only District 1 appears as an actual contest in the county's own candidate proof list](https://www.sealbeachca.gov/Government/Voter-Election-Information) 4. [City of Seal Beach -- Municipal Code & City Charter page: links a document titled "City Charter - 2014," confirming Seal Beach is a charter city, correcting this dataset's initial assumption (carried from the local-authoring queue's task framing) that it was a general-law city](https://www.sealbeachca.gov/Government/Municipal-Code-City-Charter) 5. [Wikipedia's Seal Beach, California article: confirms a council-manager form of government administered by a 5-member City Council serving four-year alternating terms, with the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem selected from among councilmembers rather than directly elected -- corroborating the county document's lack of a separate Seal Beach Mayor contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_Beach,_California) ## The rest of the ballot Seal Beach 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, "Seal Beach City Council, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/seal-beach-council-1 (sources last retrieved August 31, 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.