# Upland City Council, District 2

James Breitling is running uncontested for Upland City Council, District 2. Full ballot at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold your district's seat on Upland's four-member City Council. All four seats are elected by district. Members vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. Terms are four years, staggered so District 1 is not up again until 2028. Districts 2, 3, and 4 are up this year. Upland's Mayor and City Treasurer are separate citywide offices, not council seats. Neither is up for election in 2026.

- Jurisdiction: City of Upland
- 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/upland-council-district-2
- 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: 92 out of 100 (Very strong), across 7 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology

## On the ballot

- **James Breitling** — Councilmember, District 2 · Incumbent

A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot.

Incumbent James Breitling is unopposed for reelection to Upland's District 2 council seat on the November 3, 2026 ballot -- so this contest is settled and your vote here does not change the outcome.

This person holds District 2's seat on Upland's City Council. The council has 4 members, all elected by district. They vote on city ordinances, the budget, and land use. Upland has a council-manager government. An appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. The term is four years, ending in November 2030. Upland's Mayor is Bill Velto. Its City Treasurer is Greg Bradley. Both are separately elected citywide offices, not council seats. Neither is up for election this November. Upland moved from at-large to by-district council elections in 2016. That followed a California Voting Rights Act challenge. District 2's lines were last redrawn in a 2022 redistricting after the Census.

Breitling's filed ballot designation is "Councilmember, District 2." It reflects his current seat rather than a separate job. With no opponent, the useful question is not who to choose. It is what he has done in office and what to watch. For the next four years, accountability for this seat runs through the council and the public. It does not run through the ballot.

## James Breitling

James Breitling is Upland's incumbent District 2 councilmember, first elected in 2018 and seeking reelection unopposed. His own official bio describes over two decades in legislative politics and government-affairs consulting -- he currently directs government affairs for the Construction Industry Coalition on Water Quality and the Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition, with prior roles in the State Legislature and on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors staff -- and states he is fluent in Spanish. On the council, he chairs both the Public Works Committee and the Finance Committee and also sits on the Library Board and the county's Solid Waste Task Force. Independent of his own bio, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin profiled him in December 2020 as chairman of Upland's 2020 Census Complete Count Committee, identifying him in his own words as "the political consultant" -- corroborating his stated career, not just repeating it.

**Strengths:** A long career in government affairs. He chairs the Public Works and Finance Committees. A 2020 newspaper profile corroborates his account.

**Trade-offs:** No news coverage was found of his 2022 to 2026 council term. None was found of any contested issue during it. Only the 2020 census profile turned up, and it predates this term.

**Keep in mind:** An uncontested seat means this term's record is what is on the ballot. There is no head-to-head choice.

## Sources

1. [San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters -- "Offices Up for Election, November 3, 2026, General Election": the City of Upland section lists exactly three offices -- Member, City Council, Districts 2, 3, and 4 -- each a single seat with a 4-year term, and no Mayor or Treasurer contest.](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: the City of Upland section (pages 183-186 of 249) names all three qualified 2026 candidates -- James Breitling (District 2), Carlos A. Garcia (District 3), Rudy Zuniga (District 4) -- each the sole candidate for their seat, each flagged Incumbent, and each with zero candidate statements filed.](https://uploads.rov.sbcounty.gov/ROV/Elections/2026/1103/Report_CandidateList.pdf)
3. [City of Upland -- City Clerk's "November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election" page: states that Districts 2, 3, and 4 are up this cycle, that the nomination period closed August 7, 2026, and names all three qualified candidates with qualification dates (Garcia 7/27/26, Breitling 8/4/26, Zuniga 8/6/26), stating directly that "each district has one candidate running unopposed." Also covers Measure M (a business-license reform measure, out of scope under this dataset's ballot-measures rule).](https://www.uplandca.gov/city_clerk/elections_voter_services/november_3_2026_general_election.php)
4. [City of Upland -- "City Council & Treasurer" page: lists all four council districts plus the separately elected citywide Mayor (Bill Velto) and City Treasurer (Greg Bradley) -- confirming James Breitling (District 2), Carlos A. Garcia (District 3), and Rudy Zuniga (District 4, Mayor Pro Tem) as sitting incumbents, and that neither the Mayor nor Treasurer office is a council seat.](https://www.uplandca.gov/city_council_treasurer/index.php)
5. [City of Upland -- Councilmember James Breitling's own official bio page: over two decades in legislative politics and government-affairs consulting, current director of government affairs for the Construction Industry Coalition on Water Quality and the Construction Industry Air Quality Coalition, prior State Legislature and SB County Board of Supervisors roles, fluent in Spanish, chairs both the Public Works and Finance Committees, and founded the city's Environmental Sustainability Committee.](https://www.uplandca.gov/business_detail_T6_R133.php)
6. [Inland Valley Daily Bulletin -- "Upland has this man to thank for its high U.S. census response rate" (Dec. 18, 2020): profiles James Breitling as chairman of Upland's 2020 Complete Count Committee, identifying him in his own voice as a political consultant; reached via a search-engine snippet after a direct fetch of dailybulletin.com and a Wayback Machine lookup both failed to return page content in this pass, so only the headline, byline outlet, date, and the snippet's own quoted opening sentence are relied on here, not the article's full body text.](https://www.dailybulletin.com/2020/12/18/upland-has-this-man-to-thank-for-its-high-u-s-census-response-rate/)
7. [City of Upland's own NetFile-hosted public campaign-finance portal (aid=upl), queried by name for James Breitling: his committee ("Breitling for District 2, Upland City Council, 2026") filed an itemized FPPC Form 460 for Jan. 1-June 30, 2026 -- downloaded directly and read locally with pypdf -- showing $0 in monetary contributions, $89 in unitemized (under-$100) payments, $100 in two $50 miscellaneous cash-increase entries (annual Secretary of State fee and bank service fees), and an ending cash balance of $22.62.](https://netfile.com/public/upl/campaign)

## The rest of the ballot

Upland City Council, District 2 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, "Upland City Council, District 2 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/upland-council-district-2 (sources last retrieved August 31, 2026).

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