City of Trinidad · Statewide General Election
Trinidad City Council
This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.
On the ballot
- Kati Breckenridge — Incumbent
- Gretchen Riddle
- Jack Tuttle — Incumbent
This person would hold one of Trinidad's City Council seats for a 4-year term. Trinidad (2020 population 307, down from 367 in 2010 -- one of California's smallest incorporated cities, incorporated Nov. 7, 1870) is a general-law city under a council-manager government. Unlike Eureka or Ferndale, Trinidad has no separately elected Mayor: the Council selects one of its own members to hold that title, the same structure as neighboring Arcata and Blue Lake.
Exactly three candidates filed for Trinidad's three open City Council seats this cycle: incumbents Jack Tuttle and Kati Breckenridge, plus challenger Gretchen Riddle. With as many candidates as seats, all three are effectively assured election; your vote here does not change who takes office.
Trinidad (2020 population 307, down from 367 in 2010) is one of California's smallest incorporated cities, incorporated Nov. 7, 1870. It's a general-law city under a council-manager government. Unlike Eureka or Ferndale, Trinidad has no separately elected Mayor: Humboldt County's own pre-filing candidate list, which names a standalone Mayor seat for cities that directly elect one, lists only a City Council seat for Trinidad -- the same pattern as neighboring Arcata and Blue Lake, where the Council selects one of its own members to hold the Mayor title.
Trinidad's city website also has a separately listed "City Councilmember, 2-Yr" seat on this ballot, held by a single appointed incumbent -- but that seat doesn't appear anywhere in Humboldt County's own pre-filing seat-openings list, only in the post-filing candidate roster, an anomaly this dataset could not resolve (the city's own site blocked every access attempt this pass). It's left out of this dataset entirely rather than built on an unconfirmed footing; see this dataset's coverage notes.
Jack Tuttle
Jack Tuttle is a sitting Trinidad City Councilmember, per Humboldt County's own certified candidate filing, running for a new 4-year term. Beyond that filing (which lists only his incumbency and a PO Box mailing address), this dataset found no independently verifiable occupation, biography, campaign website, or public statement for him this cycle: a site search of Lost Coast Outpost's own coverage and its dedicated candidate Q&A tool turned up nothing candidate-specific, and Trinidad's own city website returned HTTP 403 on every page attempted, blocking access to whatever council-member biography it might otherwise carry.
Strengths
Already a sitting Councilmember, so a vote here continues a known status quo rather than installing someone new.
Trade-offs
Running effectively unopposed, his bid faces no organized counter-argument, and this dataset found no platform or priorities for a new term beyond his continued candidacy.
Keep in mind
This is one of California's smallest cities (2020 population 307), and this dataset found no 2026 election coverage from any outlet -- a documented sourcing gap common to a jurisdiction this small, not a sign anything is being withheld.
Kati Breckenridge
Kati Breckenridge is a sitting Trinidad City Councilmember, per Humboldt County's own certified candidate filing, running for a new 4-year term. As with Tuttle, the county's filing lists only her incumbency and a PO Box mailing address, and the same search -- Lost Coast Outpost's coverage and candidate tool, general web search, and Trinidad's own (inaccessible) city website -- found nothing further about her.
Strengths
Already a sitting Councilmember, so a vote here continues a known status quo rather than installing someone new.
Trade-offs
Running effectively unopposed, her bid faces no organized counter-argument, and this dataset found no platform or priorities for a new term beyond her continued candidacy.
Keep in mind
This is one of California's smallest cities (2020 population 307), and this dataset found no 2026 election coverage from any outlet -- a documented sourcing gap common to a jurisdiction this small, not a sign anything is being withheld.
Gretchen Riddle
Gretchen Riddle is a non-incumbent candidate for Trinidad City Council. Humboldt County's own certified filing lists only a self-reported email address for her, with no occupation, incumbency flag, phone, or website. The same search that found nothing further for Tuttle and Breckenridge found nothing further for her either.
Strengths
A non-incumbent name on a ballot otherwise dominated by sitting officeholders, for voters who weight that on its own.
Trade-offs
As a challenger with no council record, this dataset found no platform, occupation, or public statement to weigh -- just a self-reported email address on her county filing.
Keep in mind
This is one of California's smallest cities (2020 population 307), and this dataset found no 2026 election coverage from any outlet -- a documented sourcing gap common to a jurisdiction this small, not a sign anything is being withheld.
This dataset could not independently verify biographical detail for any of the three candidates beyond what Humboldt County's own certified filing reports. Trinidad's own city website (trinidad.ca.gov) blocked every automated request attempted this pass -- its root page, agenda pages, and city clerk page all returned HTTP 403 -- and the Internet Archive's own copy of the site was itself blocking this session's requests as suspected bot traffic for the duration of this pass. This is a documented sourcing gap common to a city this small, not a sign anything is being withheld -- and it's symmetric: all three candidates are equally sparse in the record, not one well-documented candidate against two blank ones.
Source review: Strong (84/100) · 3 cited sources
Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.
- humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "Qualified Candidate List - City Contests" (3-page PDF, fetched directly and text-extracted locally with pypdf): names Jack Tuttle (Incumbent) and Kati Breckenridge (Incumbent) alongside challenger Gretchen Riddle as the three qualified candidates for Trinidad's three regular 4-year City Council seats, and John Waskiewicz (Appointed Incumbent) as the sole qualified candidate for a separately listed "Trinidad City Councilmember, 2-Yr" seat.
- humboldtgov.org (opens in a new tab)Humboldt County Office of Elections -- "2026 [General Election] Candidate Openings" (7-page pre-filing PDF): confirms Trinidad's three regular City Council seats are a 4-year term (2027-2031); its city section (Arcata through Trinidad, alphabetically complete) lists no separate Mayor seat for Trinidad and no 2-year Trinidad council seat of any kind -- the 2-year seat that later appears in the post-filing Qualified Candidate List is not in this pre-filing document at all.
- en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia, "Trinidad, California": used narrowly for the fixed, dated 2020 Census population figure (307, down from 367 in 2010) and the Nov. 7, 1870 incorporation date; does not cover the 2026 election, and current officeholder information could not be independently verified this pass (trinidad.ca.gov returned HTTP 403 on every page and path attempted).
Last updated September 2, 2026.