# Twentynine Palms City Council, District 5 Compare records and positions simply between McArthur Wright or Shanese Risper for Twentynine Palms City Council, District 5 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds District 5's seat on Twentynine Palms's five-member, district-elected City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. Twentynine Palms is a city next to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. It sits in the high desert. Terms are four years and staggered. Only some districts are up in any given November. Districts 3, 4, and 5 are up this cycle. Districts 1 and 2 next return in 2028. The Council picks one of its own members as a rotating Mayor. It also picks another as Mayor Pro Tem each term. Twentynine Palms does not separately elect a citywide Mayor. - Jurisdiction: City of Twentynine Palms - 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/twentynine-palms-council-district-5 - 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: September 7, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 91 out of 100 (Very strong), across 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **McArthur Wright** — Incumbent - **Shanese Risper** — Veteran / Entrepreneur A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent McArthur Wright faces challenger Shanese Risper for Twentynine Palms's City Council District 5 seat on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Whoever gets the most votes wins outright; there is no primary or runoff. This person would hold District 5's seat on Twentynine Palms's 5-member, district-elected City Council. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this high-desert city next to the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. Terms are four years, staggered so only some districts are up in any given November -- Districts 3, 4, and 5 are up this cycle; Districts 1 and 2 next return in 2028. The Council elects one of its own members to serve as the rotating Mayor and another as Mayor Pro Tem each term; Twentynine Palms does not separately elect a citywide Mayor. Both candidates surfaced in this dataset's research through the same July 28, 2026 council meeting: Wright abstained from a vote on a homeless-shelter grant proposal, citing his own church connections, while Risper spoke to the council in their professional role with the nonprofit that proposed it. ## McArthur Wright McArthur Wright is Twentynine Palms's incumbent District 5 councilmember, filing under the ballot designation "Incumbent." Originally from Eutawville, South Carolina, he served a 20-year Marine Corps career beginning in 1985, retiring in 2005 as Communications Chief with the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion at Twentynine Palms; his deployments included Desert Shield/Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He holds a bachelor's in business management and a master's in theological studies from Liberty University, plus master's degrees in organizational leadership and business management from National University. He has served on the council since December 2014, works at the MCCS Career Resource Office helping transitioning service members at the Marine Corps base, and serves as an Associate Minister at Gospel Fellowship Christian Center Church and President of the Ministerial Association of Twentynine Palms. On July 28, 2026, he abstained from a council vote on a state disaster-resilience grant for a homeless-shelter proposal, citing his own church connections; the motion failed on a 2-2 vote with his abstention. **Strengths:** A decade on the council since 2014 plus a 20-year Marine Corps career at the same base the city sits beside; an ongoing career helping transitioning service members and local ministerial leadership. **Trade-offs:** His July 2026 abstention on a shelter-grant vote, citing his own church connections, was not further explained in the reporting found in this pass -- stated here as fact, not characterized further. **Keep in mind:** Financial info could not be retrieved for him -- see below. ## Shanese Risper Shanese Risper is a first-time candidate challenging incumbent McArthur Wright for the District 5 seat. Risper's filed ballot designation is "Veteran / Entrepreneur." Independent of their candidacy, the Hi-Desert Star's own reporting on a July 28, 2026 city council meeting identifies them as Community Outreach Director for The Hope Center, a service group sponsored by The Sanctuary Church, where they advocated for the city to partner with the group on converting a former retail building into a homeless shelter and disaster-resilience center: "We are doing our part. We would love for the city of Twentynine Palms to partner with us." **Strengths:** A documented leadership role with a local shelter and disaster-response nonprofit, independent of Risper's candidacy; the same reporting credits them as a trained Red Cross volunteer leader. **Trade-offs:** Risper's "Veteran" ballot designation was not independently corroborated in this pass; no platform statement or prior campaign record was found. **Keep in mind:** Financial info could not be retrieved for Risper -- see below. ## Sources 1. [San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- "Offices Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": lists County Board of Education Areas A, B, and D (under the School category) as the county's only expiring-term seats this cycle -- no Board of Supervisors, row office, or Superior Court seat appears anywhere in the 11-page document](https://uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov/ROV/Elections/2026/1103/Report_OfficesUpForElection.pdf) 2. [San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- statewide "Report_CandidateList.pdf" candidate-filing report linked from the county's own November 3, 2026 candidates page: within the San Bernardino County section, only Area B carries any candidates (Rita Fernandez-Loof, Miki R. Inbody, Kimberly L. Watson); Areas A and D, both confirmed expiring this cycle by the county's own Offices Up for Election document, have no candidates anywhere in the report and will not appear on the November ballot](https://uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov/ROV/Elections/2026/1103/Report_CandidateList.pdf) 3. [City of Twentynine Palms -- "Mayor & Council" page: names the sitting five-member council by district and term-expiration year -- Mayor Daniel L. Mintz Sr. (District 3, term expires 2026), Mayor Pro Tem Octavious Scott (District 4, term expires 2026), Steven Bilderain (District 1, term expires 2024), April Ramirez (District 2, term expires 2024), and McArthur Wright (District 5, term expires 2026) -- confirming which three districts are up this cycle](https://www.ci.twentynine-palms.ca.us/mayor-council) 4. [draw29palms.org -- the city's official 2022 redistricting site: confirms the city adopted its current five-district council map on March 8, 2022 via Resolution 22-04, and that "Districts 3, 4 and 5 are up for election in 2022, and Districts 1 and 2 are up for election in 2024" -- establishing the staggered 4-year term structure that puts Districts 3, 4, and 5 up again in 2026](https://draw29palms.org) 5. [Hi-Desert Star / Desert Trail (byline Jene Estrada) -- "Candidates run for City Council, MUSD board": names all three Twentynine Palms 2026 council contests and every candidate -- "Mayor Daniel Mintz ran unopposed for District 3"; in District 4, "Carlos Blandon and Karmolette O'Gilvie are challenging incumbent Octavious Scott, currently mayor pro tem"; in District 5, "Shanese Risper is running against incumbent McArthur Wright"](https://www.hidesertstar.com/deserttrail/candidates-run-for-city-council-musd-board/article_6f1de2fd-27ee-47d8-a64f-6bf47bbc5beb.html) 6. [Hi-Desert Star / Desert Trail -- "Council opts not to pursue shelter grant": reports on a July 28, 2026 council meeting where members voted 2-2 (with one abstention) against pursuing a state disaster-resilience grant for a homeless-shelter proposal -- "Mayor Dan Mintz and Mayor Pro Tem Octavious Scott opposed. With council member McArthur Wright abstaining because of his church connections, the motion failed" -- and identifies Shanese Risper by her own title, "Hope Center Community Outreach Director," quoting her advocacy for the proposal directly](https://www.hidesertstar.com/deserttrail/council-opts-not-to-pursue-shelter-grant/article_76f96ec8-a19b-4ac6-a1d2-ff8ab845d3f6.html) 7. [San Bernardino County -- NetFile public campaign-finance portal (aid=SBD), queried directly by name against the portal's own QuickNameSearch API for all six 2026 Twentynine Palms candidates (Mintz, Scott, Blandon, O'Gilvie, Wright, Risper): every query returned zero filers -- no candidate or committee record at all for any of the six](https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?aid=SBD) 8. [City of Twentynine Palms -- Mayor & Council's own bio page for McArthur Wright: a 20-year Marine Corps career (1985-2005), retiring as Communications Chief with the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion at Twentynine Palms; a bachelor's in business management and a master's in theological studies from Liberty University plus two further master's degrees from National University; on the council since December 2014; works at the MCCS Career Resource Office at MCAGCC Twentynine Palms and serves as an Associate Minister at Gospel Fellowship Christian Center Church and President of the Ministerial Association of Twentynine Palms](https://www.ci.twentynine-palms.ca.us/index.asp?SEC=5F14F0BE-93CD-4F63-9086-0AA46D705393&DE=CEB85509-C8AA-458F-9893-91DA35C5392B) ## The rest of the ballot Twentynine Palms City Council, District 5 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, "Twentynine Palms City Council, District 5 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/twentynine-palms-council-district-5 (sources last retrieved September 7, 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.