# Tustin City Council, District 3 Compare records and positions simply between Ray Schnell or Thomas James "TJ" Reed for Tustin City Council, District 3 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds the District 3 seat on Tustin's five-member City Council. The council has a Mayor plus four district Council Members. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. An appointed city manager runs day to day operations. Not all four districts are up the same year. The term is four years. - Jurisdiction: City of Tustin - 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/tustin-council-3 - 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: 89 out of 100 (Strong), across 3 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Ray Schnell** — Councilmember/Business Executive · Incumbent - **Thomas James "TJ" Reed** — Assistant Professor A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Ray Schnell, Tustin's Mayor Pro Tem, is running for a second term representing District 3 against challenger Thomas James "TJ" Reed, whose filed ballot designation is "Assistant Professor." Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3 wins outright; there's no runoff. This person holds District 3's seat on Tustin's 5-member City Council -- a Mayor plus four district Council Members -- voting on city ordinances, the budget, and land use alongside an appointed city manager who runs day-to-day operations. Not all four districts are up the same year. The term is four years. Beyond Schnell's substantive city-published biography and Reed's own filed occupation, no campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source could be found for Reed despite a real search effort across multiple engines. Documented below as a gap, not filled in with speculation. ## Ray Schnell Schnell was elected to Tustin City Council in November 2022 and currently serves as Mayor Pro Tem. He works in financial services, specializing in mergers-and-acquisitions transactional risk management and capital-intermediary services for private equity and venture capital firms. He holds a BA in English from the University of Rochester and an MBA from Chapman University (Beta Gamma Sigma). Before his election he served on the Tustin Public Schools Foundation board and various school advisory councils. He represents Tustin on the Foothill/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agencies and serves as an alternate for the Santa Ana River Flood Protection Agency and the Senior Fund Board of Directors. His stated priorities are public, fire, and school safety and government accountability, and keeping Tustin "Affordable & Prosperous" through economic strength and expanded housing options. **Strengths:** A finance and risk-management background paired with prior school-foundation service and multiple regional transportation and flood-agency roles. **Trade-offs:** The city's bio lists general priorities rather than specific 2026 commitments; his incumbency also means his voting record from the current term is part of what's being judged. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for his campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Thomas James "TJ" Reed Filed their candidacy under the ballot designation "Assistant Professor." No campaign site, news coverage, or other independent source describing their specific background, institution, or platform could be found in this pass despite a real search effort across multiple search engines, Voice of OC's own site search, and an attempted OC Register fetch. **Strengths:** An academic background suggests research or teaching experience, though the specific institution or field isn't confirmed in this pass. **Trade-offs:** No campaign statement or platform was found, so voters have no confirmed sense of their priorities beyond their listed designation. **Keep in mind:** No CAL-ACCESS record was checked for their campaign in this pass -- see Financial info. ## Sources 1. [OC Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, General Election 11/3/2026 -- City of Tustin section (pages 159-161 of 188, downloaded directly and parsed locally with pypdf since a plain fetch returns undecodable PDF stream data): confirms Mayor (2 qualified candidates) and Member, City Council District 3 (2) as the city's two November 2026 races, each Vote for 1, with incumbent flags and every candidate's filed ballot designation](https://ocvote.gov/fileadmin/user_upload/data/candlog/GEN2026/candlog.pdf) 2. [City of Tustin -- City Council page: confirms the Council is "composed of a Mayor and four Council Members," lists the current five (Mayor Austin Lumbard, Mayor Pro Tem Ray Schnell, and Council Members Ryan Gallagher, Lee K. Fink, John Nielsen), and links each member's individual biography page](https://www.tustinca.org/482/City-Council) 3. [City of Tustin -- Mayor Pro Tem Ray Schnell official biography: BA English (University of Rochester), MBA (Chapman University, Beta Gamma Sigma); works in financial services (M&A transactional risk management); elected to Council November 2022; prior service on the Tustin Public Schools Foundation board; stated priorities: public/fire/school safety and government accountability, housing and cost-of-living affordability](https://www.tustinca.org/1396/Mayor-Pro-Tem-Ray-Schnell) ## The rest of the ballot Tustin City Council, District 3 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, "Tustin City Council, District 3 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/tustin-council-3 (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.