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City of Soledad · Statewide General Election

Soledad City Council, District 2

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On the ballot

This person would represent Soledad City Council District 2 on the city's 5-member City Council (a directly elected Mayor plus 4 district Councilmembers), which sets the budget, land use, and municipal ordinances for this Monterey County city in the Salinas Valley. A 4-year term. Soledad moved from at-large to by-district council elections starting with its Nov. 2024 election; this is the first time District 2 itself is up. The Mayor is a separate, directly elected 2-year-term office and is not part of this race -- and, per the City Council's own Aug. 19, 2026 resolution appointing Fernando Cabrera under Elections Code Section 10229, is not on the November 2026 ballot at all, having drawn only one qualified candidate. The same is true of District 1, where the Council appointed Fernando Ansaldo-Sanchez unopposed; District 2 is Soledad's only council race that actually reached the ballot this cycle.

Don J Bolin and Eugene Ivey are running for Soledad City Council District 2 -- the city's only council or mayoral race that actually reached the printed ballot this November. The Council appointed the sole qualified candidates for Mayor and District 1 directly, rather than hold elections neither race needed.

District 2 elects one member to a 4-year term on Soledad's 5-member City Council, which sets the budget, land use, and municipal ordinances for this Salinas Valley city in Monterey County. Soledad's Mayor is a separate, directly elected 2-year-term office and isn't part of this race.

This is the first time District 2 itself has been on the ballot: Soledad moved from at-large to by-district council elections starting with its November 2024 election. Two of Soledad's three council-level offices this cycle -- Mayor and District 1 -- aren't on the ballot at all, since only one candidate qualified for each; District 2 is the only race Soledad voters actually decide this November.

Only one candidate qualified for Mayor (Fernando Cabrera) and for District 1 (Fernando Ansaldo-Sanchez). Rather than hold elections that couldn't change the outcome, the City Council voted 4-0-1 twice on Aug. 19, 2026 to appoint both directly under state election law -- each recusing from his own vote -- citing an estimated $37,530 to $62,550 in savings to the city's General Fund. Cabrera, until then the sitting District 2 councilmember, becomes Mayor for a 2-year term; Ansaldo-Sanchez is reappointed to District 1 for a 4-year term. District 2, the seat Cabrera is vacating, is the one race that drew more candidates than seats.

Eugene Ivey

Eugene Ivey is a retired peace officer and Army veteran who currently serves as commander of Soledad's American Legion Post 32 -- a role he already held well before this campaign, presiding over the city's 2026 Memorial Day ceremony in that capacity in May.

Strengths

a visible civic role predating his candidacy (American Legion Post 32 commander), plus a law-enforcement and military background. He filed a candidate statement with the county.

Trade-offs

no prior elected office; his platform and positions were not independently reachable this pass (his filed candidate statement is a scanned document this dataset could not access).

Keep in mind

"Retired Peace Officer" is his own filed occupation, not necessarily current full-time work.

Don J Bolin

Don J Bolin filed for Soledad City Council District 2 with the occupation "Patient Care Navigator." No candidate statement is on file with the county, and no independent news coverage, campaign website, or public biography was found for him this pass.

Strengths

a healthcare-sector occupation as his filed public identity.

Trade-offs

no independently verifiable background, platform, or prior civic record was found beyond his county filing.

Keep in mind

the absence of coverage reflects a real search limit for a first-time local candidate in a small city, not a finding about him personally.

Source review: Very strong (90/100) · 6 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Elections -- official "Candidate List" page for the November 3, 2026 General Election, read via two Wayback Machine snapshots (Aug. 13 and Aug. 23, 2026; the live page returns HTTP 403 (Akamai) to every direct fetch, the same block documented elsewhere in this county). Unlike this dataset's other Monterey County candidate-list retrievals, both snapshots render the full per-seat roster, not just office titles: on Aug. 13, "CITY OF SOLEDAD" Mayor (Fernando Cabrera), District 1 (Fernando Ansaldo), and District 2 (Don J Bolin, Eugene Ivey) all read "On Ballot"; by Aug. 23, Mayor and District 1 had flipped to "Appointed In-Lieu of Election" while District 2 kept the same two names "On Ballot" -- independently corroborating the city's own Aug. 19, 2026 Section 10229 appointment resolutions.
  • cityofsoledad.granicus.com (opens in a new tab)City of Soledad -- Aug. 19, 2026 Regular City Council meeting agenda packet (Item 4, staff report and Resolutions No. 6411 and 6412) and the Sept. 2, 2026 packet's approved minutes of that same meeting, both fetched directly from the city's own Granicus portal. The staff report states only Fernando Cabrera (Mayor) and Fernando Ansaldo Sanchez (District 1) qualified unopposed, while "two candidates had qualified for the District 2 Councilmember seat." The approved minutes confirm Resolution No. 6411 (appointing Ansaldo-Sanchez to District 1) and Resolution No. 6412 (appointing Cabrera to Mayor) each passed 4-0-1, canceling both elections under Elections Code Section 10229 -- each appointee recused himself from his own vote.
  • montereycountynow.com (opens in a new tab)Monterey County Weekly / Salinas Valley Now (montereycountynow.com) -- "Fernando Ansaldo-Sanchez reconsiders and will run for reelection on the Soledad City Council" (Celia Jimenez, Aug. 10, 2026): quotes Deputy City Clerk Darlene Noriega that four candidates had filed as of Aug. 7, and names Soledad's only contested race in the paper's own words: "District 2 with two candidates so far: Eugene Ivey, an army veteran who is currently commander at Soledad American Legion Post 32, and Don Bolin." Also reports Fernando Cabrera (then the District 2 councilmember) launched his Mayoral run and Ansaldo-Sanchez reversed his earlier retirement announcement to run for District 1.
  • salinasvalleytribune.com (opens in a new tab)The Salinas Valley Tribune -- "Gonzales, Soledad communities gather for 2026 Memorial Day ceremonies" (Michael Ramirez, May 27, 2026): independently corroborates Eugene Ivey's American Legion Post 32 Commander role, in an unrelated, pre-campaign context -- "American Legion Post 32 Commander Eugene Ivey welcomed everyone while providing information about Memorial Day."
  • cityofsoledad.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Soledad -- official "City Council" page: "The Soledad City Council is made up of five members including a mayor," who "also serve as the Soledad Successor Agency of the former Redevelopment Agency." Used for government-structure background only; the page's own document viewer does not surface a full current-member roster.
  • cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)California Secretary of State CAL-ACCESS -- filer searches for Don Bolin and Eugene Ivey: every query returned only an Incapsula bot-detection challenge page, not usable results, the same recurring access block documented dataset-wide.

Last updated September 2, 2026.