# Yucca Valley Town Council, District 5 Compare records and positions simply between Dion Antic or Rick Denison for Yucca Valley Town Council, District 5 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold District 5's seat on Yucca Valley's Town Council. The council has five members, all elected by district. Members vote on town ordinances, the budget, and land use. Yucca Valley is a High Desert town with a council-manager government. An appointed Town Manager runs day-to-day operations. Terms are four years and staggered, so not all districts are up each time. Districts 1, 3, and 5 were up this cycle. Only District 5 drew a second candidate. Incumbents in Districts 1 and 3 ran unopposed, so they were seated without election. Yucca Valley has no separately elected Mayor. Two of the five councilmembers hold the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem titles instead. - Jurisdiction: City of Yucca Valley - 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/yucca-valley-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: 94 out of 100 (Very strong), across 5 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Dion Antic** — Small Business Owner - **Rick Denison** — Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. Incumbent Rick Denison, on the council since 2014 and reappointed without opposition in 2018 and 2022, faces a real challenger this time: Dion Antic, a small-business owner. Whichever candidate gets the most votes on November 3, 2026 wins outright -- there is no primary or runoff. This person would hold District 5's seat on Yucca Valley's Town Council. All five seats on that council are elected by district. They vote on town ordinances, the budget, and land use for this High Desert town. The town has a council-manager government, so an appointed Town Manager runs day-to-day operations. Terms are four years, staggered so only some districts are up in any given November. Districts 1, 3, and 5 were formally up this cycle. But only District 5 drew a second candidate. Districts 1 and 3 will be filled without an election. District 1's Jim Schooler and District 3's Merl Abel both ran unopposed and are simply reappointed. Abel is the council's current Mayor. Yucca Valley has no separately elected, citywide Mayor. Two of the five district councilmembers hold the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem titles. They are chosen from among their own ranks. This is the only contested Town Council race on Yucca Valley's November ballot. It is a genuine choice between an incumbent with over a decade of tenure and a first-time challenger. Every other town office up for a vote in the Morongo Basin is being filled by reappointment. There is no ballot line at all. Those include two other Town Council seats and the Yucca Valley Airport District. They also include Hi-Desert Water District and Twentynine Palms Water District. Copper Mountain Community College District and a Morongo Unified School District seat are on that list too. ## Rick Denison Rick Denison is the incumbent District 5 councilmember, filing under the ballot designation "Incumbent." They were first elected in 2014 and has twice been reappointed without opposition, in 2018 and 2022 -- this is the first time in eight years a challenger has qualified against them. No town-published biography page could be retrieved for them in this pass (yucca-valley.org returned a domain-wide access-denied error to every fetch attempt), and no independent news profile of their tenure beyond their listing as a sitting councilmember was found. **Strengths:** Twelve years on the council as of this term, with two prior unopposed reappointments -- more sustained tenure in this specific seat than any challenger could claim on a first run. **Trade-offs:** No independent reporting on their tenure was found, and no town biography page could be retrieved (the town's site blocked every fetch); financial info was unavailable too -- see below. **Keep in mind:** This is the first contested election they have faced since first winning the seat in 2014 -- worth weighing as a fresh test of their standing after two uncontested terms. ## Dion Antic Dion Antic is a challenger for Yucca Valley Town Council District 5. The county's own candidate filing lists their occupation as "Small Business Owner." They hold no town office; no town-published biography page could be retrieved for them in this pass (yucca-valley.org returned a domain-wide access-denied error to every fetch attempt), and no independent news profile, campaign website, or platform material about them was found. **Strengths:** None could be documented in this research pass beyond their filed occupation. **Trade-offs:** No biographical or platform info beyond their filed occupation was found anywhere in this pass -- a documented gap, not an oversight. Financial info was likewise unavailable. **Keep in mind:** They are the first candidate to challenge this seat since 2014, in a town where every other seat up this cycle drew no opposition at all -- worth noting as context for how uncommon a contested Town Council race is here, not as a claim about either candidate's merits. ## 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. [Hi-Desert Star / Desert Trail (byline Jene Estrada) -- Morongo Basin elections roundup: "Two of the three seats up for election on the Yucca Valley Town Council will be filled without elections. In District 5, Dion Antic is challenging Rick Denison, who was first elected in 2014 and reappointed in 2018 and 2022 when no one ran against him. Jim Schooler will be reappointed to District 1 and Merl Abel, currently mayor, will remain the council member for District 3, since both ran unopposed" -- independent confirmation, and explanation, of why only District 5 appears in the county's own candidate-filing report.](https://www.hidesertstar.com/deserttrail/candidates-run-for-city-council-musd-board/article_6f1de2fd-27ee-47d8-a64f-6bf47bbc5beb.html) 4. [Wikipedia -- "Yucca Valley, California," Government/Municipal section: names the sitting Town Council as of that snapshot -- Mayor Jeff Drozd, Mayor Pro-Tem Merl Abel, and Council Members Jim Schooler, Rick Denison, and Robert Lombardo -- and describes the town as operating under a council-manager government; used only for the 5-member roster and government form, not for any 2026 election detail, which is sourced independently to the Hi-Desert Star and the county's own documents above.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Valley,_California) 5. [San Bernardino County -- NetFile public campaign-finance portal (aid=SBD), queried directly by name against the portal's own QuickNameSearch API for both 2026 Yucca Valley Town Council District 5 candidates (Denison, Antic): every query returned zero filers -- no candidate or committee record at all for either.](https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?aid=SBD) ## The rest of the ballot Yucca Valley Town 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, "Yucca Valley Town Council, District 5 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/yucca-valley-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.