Sutter Creek City Council

Two of Sutter Creek's City Council seats are up this cycle, and three candidates filed for them: incumbent Susan Feist, plus non-incumbents Aaron Linker and Mayla Swift-Burgess. With three candidates for two seats, this is a genuinely contested race that goes to the ballot -- not a case where the city could appoint winners and skip the election.

This person would hold one of two open seats on Sutter Creek's five-member City Council for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and local land use in a General Law city of 2,646 people (2020 Census), incorporated Feb. 11, 1913, in the Sierra foothills of Amador County -- the city's own website states directly that Sutter Creek 'is a General Law City, which means it is organized in accordance with provisions of the State Government Code.' No separately elected 'Mayor of Sutter Creek' exists -- Amador County's own pre-filing election notice lists only '2 Councilmember seats (4-yr)' for Sutter Creek's City Council. Claire Gunselman currently holds the Mayor title and Julia Sierk is Vice Mayor, per the city's own Council page; neither is a candidate in this specific 2026 race, meaning their own seats aren't up this cycle. The same pre-filing notice also lists a separately elected City Treasurer seat for Sutter Creek, but it drew zero qualified candidates and has no contest at all on the certified candidate list -- the Ledger Dispatch's own Aug. 26, 2026 election coverage independently explains why: a separate item on the same November ballot, Measure R, asks Sutter Creek voters whether to convert the Treasurer position from elected to appointed. Ballot measures are outside this dataset's scope, so Measure R itself isn't covered here, but it's the likely context for why no one ran for the seat this cycle.

Candidate background here is proportionate, not lopsided. Beyond Susan Feist's confirmed incumbency -- both the county's own candidate list and the city's own Council page independently name her as a sitting Council Member with a term expiring December 2026, exactly the seat cycle this election covers -- no further independent record was found for her. Mayla Swift-Burgess has one sourced, dated fact beyond her status as a qualified candidate: at an Aug. 17, 2026 City Council meeting, the Ledger Dispatch quotes her by name, identified as a Sutter Creek resident, speaking in public comment against the city's cannabis-dispensary development agreement. That's a documented public position, not a full platform or biography, and it's presented narrowly here rather than treated as a fuller profile than the other two candidates have. No comparable record was found for Aaron Linker: a 2023 Ledger Dispatch feature on a Pine Grove taproom quotes someone named Aaron Linker describing the beer-brewing process, but nothing ties that quote to this 2026 candidate specifically, so it isn't used as a fact about him here.

Sutter Creek's full council size (five seats: Mayor, Vice Mayor, and three Council Members) is confirmed directly by the city's own website. What's confirmed either way: two seats are contested by three candidates, so this goes to the ballot regardless of who wins.

Susan Feist

Mayla Swift-Burgess

Aaron Linker