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City of Tehama · Statewide General Election

City of Tehama City Council

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On the ballot

This person would hold one of four open seats on the City of Tehama's 5-member City Council for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, in a small general-law city (population 435 at the 2020 Census) where Council members serve as unpaid volunteers. Tehama doesn't directly elect a Mayor -- each December, the Council selects a Mayor from among its own members; Robert Mitchell, one of this cycle's four candidates, currently holds that title.

Four of the City of Tehama's five Council seats are up this cycle, and exactly four candidates filed: James W. Bacquet, Janine Weston, Robert E Mitchell, and Lynda Cameron, all incumbents or appointed incumbents. Tehama County's own certified candidate list marks this contest "On Ballot: Yes" -- all four names go to the printed ballot and, absent a late disqualification, are effectively elected, the same as an unopposed race would be, just for four seats at once rather than one.

This person would hold one of the City of Tehama's five Council seats for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, in a small general-law city of 435 people (2020 Census) where Council members serve as unpaid volunteers, per the city's own website. Tehama doesn't directly elect a Mayor -- each December, the Council selects a Mayor from among its own members. Robert Mitchell, one of this cycle's four candidates, currently holds that title.

Why four seats and not five: Tehama County's own November 2024 election results show only one City of Tehama Council seat was up that cycle -- Hurschel Himes defeated Karen Hammers, 147 votes to 122 -- so Himes's own term runs through 2028 and he isn't a candidate this year, even though the city's own website still lists him as a sitting Councilmember. That same city website doesn't yet list Janine Weston at all, even though the county's own candidate list identifies her as an "Appointed Incumbent" -- consistent with a vacancy filled after the website's roster was last updated, though this dataset couldn't independently confirm which seat she now holds or when she was appointed.

An exact seats == candidates field like this one is the kind of race California's Elections Code Section 10229 allows a city to cancel and fill by council appointment instead of printing it on the ballot. That didn't happen here: the county's own certified "Qualified List of Candidates" explicitly marks this contest "On Ballot: Yes," and its pre-filing "Offices on Ballot" notice carries no cancellation notation either -- direct, confirmed evidence this is a genuine printed race, not an inference from the candidate count alone.

James W. Bacquet

James W. Bacquet is a sitting City of Tehama Councilmember seeking reelection, confirmed as a current officeholder both by his "Incumbent" ballot designation and by the city's own Mayor & Council page. No further independent record of his occupation, platform, or Council priorities was found in this pass: the city's website lists Council members by name only, with no linked biography, and no news coverage specific to his 2026 candidacy turned up in a genuine search of local outlets or the open web.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent, confirmed by both his own ballot designation and the city's own official roster.

Trade-offs

No independent record of his occupation, platform, or specific Council votes was found in this pass -- his incumbency is confirmed, but nothing else about his candidacy is.

Keep in mind

The absence of coverage reflects a very small town's thin local-news environment generally, not anything unusual about this candidate -- all four candidates in this field have an equally bare public record.

Janine Weston

Janine Weston is an appointed incumbent City of Tehama Councilmember, per her county-filed "Appointed Incumbent" ballot designation, now running to keep the seat in her own right. She does not yet appear on the city's own Mayor & Council roster page, suggesting her appointment came after that page was last updated; this dataset found no source confirming when she was appointed or which prior seat she now holds. No further independent record of her occupation, platform, or civic background was found in this pass.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent by appointment, confirmed directly by the county's own certified candidate list.

Trade-offs

No independent record of her occupation, platform, or the date/circumstances of her appointment was found in this pass -- the freshest of the four incumbencies here, but also the least documented.

Keep in mind

An appointed incumbent asking voters to keep a seat she did not win outright is a different position than an elected incumbent -- worth weighing given how thin every candidate record is here.

Robert E Mitchell

Robert E Mitchell is a sitting City of Tehama Councilmember seeking reelection, confirmed by his "Incumbent" ballot designation and independently by the city's own website, which names him the current Mayor -- a title the Council selects annually from among its own members each December rather than voters electing directly. No further independent record of his occupation, platform, or Council priorities was found in this pass.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent and current Mayor, confirmed by two sources -- his own ballot designation and the city's official website.

Trade-offs

No independent record of his occupation, platform, or specific decisions as Mayor or Councilmember was found in this pass -- his officeholder status is well-documented, but little else about him is.

Keep in mind

The Mayor's seat here isn't a separate ballot line -- a vote for him is a vote for one of the four Council seats, with the Mayor title itself decided later by his fellow Councilmembers, not directly by voters.

Lynda Cameron

Lynda Cameron is an appointed incumbent City of Tehama Councilmember seeking to keep her seat, confirmed both by her "Appointed Incumbent" ballot designation and by the city's own Mayor & Council page, which lists her among the current Council. No further independent record of her occupation, platform, or civic background, or of the date/circumstances of her appointment, was found in this pass.

Strengths

Sitting incumbent by appointment, confirmed both by her ballot designation and the city's own current roster.

Trade-offs

No independent record of her occupation, platform, or the date/circumstances of her appointment was found in this pass.

Keep in mind

As with Weston, an appointed incumbent asking voters to keep a seat is a different position than an elected incumbent -- worth weighing given how thin every candidate record is here.

Candidate background for this contest is genuinely thin across all four names, not lopsided: beyond confirmed incumbency status (elected or appointed) drawn from the county's and city's own official documents, none of the four has an independently verifiable occupation, platform, or civic record locatable in this pass. Tehama (population 435) has no locatable dedicated local newspaper; this session's WebSearch tool budget was exhausted before this contest was researched, so this pass verified candidate depth through direct WebFetch queries against Bing, Mojeek, and the county's and city's own sites -- all returned nothing beyond the structural facts already cited above.

Source review: Strong (81/100) · 6 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.

  • tehama.gov (opens in a new tab)Tehama County Elections Department -- "Offices on Ballot for November 3, 2026" (official pre-filing notice): names "City of Tehama - Member of City Council," 4-year term, 4 seats -- no separately elected Tehama Mayor seat appears anywhere in the document.
  • tehama.gov (opens in a new tab)Tehama County Elections Department -- "Qualified List of Candidates," Nov. 3, 2026 General Election, printed Aug. 10, 2026 (contest 4620, "City Of Tehama Member Of City Council," Vote For 4, marked "On Ballot: Yes"): names James W. Bacquet ("Incumbent"), Janine Weston ("Appointed Incumbent"), Robert E Mitchell ("Incumbent"), and Lynda Cameron ("Appointed Incumbent") as the four qualified candidates -- read directly from the extracted PDF text, not a summary.
  • cityoftehama.us (opens in a new tab)City of Tehama -- Mayor & Council page: its own Mayor page states the Mayor "is not directly elected" but is "a council member that is elected each December by the council"; its Mayor & Council page names the sitting Mayor (Robert Mitchell) and Council (James Bacquet, Robert Christison, Hurschel Himes, Lynda Cameron) -- a roster that appears to predate this cycle's filings, since it omits 2026 candidate Janine Weston and still lists Christison and Himes, neither a 2026 candidate.
  • tehama.gov (opens in a new tab)Tehama County Elections -- Statement of Votes Cast by District, Nov. 5, 2024 General Election (certified workbook): shows only ONE City of Tehama Member of City Council seat was up in 2024 (Hurschel Himes defeated Karen Hammers, 147-122 votes), corroborating a staggered-term structure and explaining Himes's continued Council membership without a 2026 candidacy.
  • netfile.com (opens in a new tab)A negative access result: Tehama County's own NetFile public portal (netfile.com/agency/TEHAMA/index.html), linked from the County's own Elections > Campaign Statements page, rendered as a bare client-side "Public Portal" shell with no server-rendered filer or filing content reachable by this session's fetch tooling. Documents an access gap, not any of the four candidates' actual campaign finances.
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- Tehama, California: incorporation year (July 5, 1906) and 2020 Census population (435), used narrowly for these two descriptive facts only.

Last updated September 2, 2026.