Laguna Beach Election Guide: 2026 Candidates & Voting Information

How So Laguna verifies the City Council voter guide

So Laguna prioritizes primary election records from the Laguna Beach City Clerk, Orange County Registrar of Voters, California Secretary of State and California Fair Political Practices Commission. City Council candidate biographies and stated positions are attributed to official candidate materials and are not presented as independently verified facts unless supported by additional records.

Every City Council candidate will be offered the same questionnaire and the same opportunity to request a factual correction. Campaign statements, third-party claims, endorsements and So Laguna commentary will be labeled. City Council candidate order will follow the official ballot—not editorial preference.

Primary source set: 2026 municipal election and candidate statements; City Clerk election portal; ballot measures; dated City Clerk announcement. Additional reporting: Orange County Register overview of 2026 city-council candidate fields.

Reporting and research: Michael Kovach, So Laguna
Last checked: September 14, 2026
Corrections and documents: michael@solaguna.com

So Laguna is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. This City Council guide is an informational resource and is not an official publication of the City of Laguna Beach or the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

Editorial transparency

Election guide update log

This dated record tracks substantive changes to So Laguna’s nonpartisan Laguna Beach Election 2026 voter guide. Routine candidate-profile, campaign-finance and official-source updates are recorded here rather than turned into separate news articles. So Laguna publishes a standalone news report only when a development warrants additional reporting and context.

• October 19, 2026Added both Kempf Forms 460: a new September 20–October 17 statement with $5,850 in period receipts, $44,602 calendar-year contributions and $28,042.29 ending cash, plus an amendment replacing filing 1112 without changing prior summary totals. Updated the comparison, candidate finance, sources and private filing ledger. Disclosed the $933.66 discrepancy between the reported year-to-date spending and the two periods added together; retained the filed figure without inferring a correction.
• October 16, 2026Added six union PAC expenditure reports totaling $10,859.21, organization amendments and the Chamber debate archive. Corrected the Good Leadership Committee spending total to $99,950; its separate $100,000 contribution is unchanged.
• October 15, 2026Added four reviewed Forms 496: $38,484.61 in new Good Leadership Committee spending supporting Kempf, Rounaghi and Orgill, bringing its reported cumulative spending to $99,950 (corrected October 16), plus Citizens for Laguna’s Future’s $2,000 media-production and video-editing expenditure opposing Measure E. Updated the comparison, three candidate profiles, both Measure E finance displays and private filing ledger with source links. Cumulative figures include earlier spending; outside expenditures stay separate from candidate donations and committee funding.
• October 7, 2026Highlighted the verified $100,000 Regency Properties contribution to the shared committee supporting Kempf, Rounaghi and Orgill on the main finance comparison and all three profiles. Kept campaign receipts, shared committee funding and candidate-specific independent spending separate. Archived the completed October 6 South Laguna Civic forum and refreshed next-forum links: PTA School Board on October 7; Chamber City Council on October 15, with its published 6–9 p.m. schedule, Zoom registration and Cox channel 852 broadcast.
• October 6, 2026Added NimbleGov PAC’s $2,842.19 final mailing payment, bringing the two October Measure E mailing payments to $5,684.37. Added Joy Berry’s $3,000 candidate-loan disclosure received October 2, separately from periodic totals. Linked Regency’s contributor-side report confirming the existing $100,000 committee contribution without double counting it. Replaced the outdated KXFM headline with the latest completed forum selected from the current schedule.
• October 2, 2026Added the Laguna Canyon Conservancy’s September 28 full panel and closing statements, candidate answer links and searchable transcripts. Updated South Laguna Civic Association’s October 6 forum guide with the organizer’s RSVP email.
• September 25, 2026Added reviewed Form 460 finance totals and links for Sue Kempf, Mark Orgill and Karen Martin. Updated the Measure E finance cards with NimbleGov PAC’s amended September 25 Form 460 and Citizens for Laguna’s Future’s new $1,000 Form 497 contribution from Steve Chadima, received after the September 19 reporting period. The NimbleGov amendment corrects an address without changing financial totals; the new contribution is shown separately from the earlier Form 460 totals.
• September 23, 2026Added Laura Parisi’s filed Form 470 to her candidate profile and finance comparison without assigning a zero-dollar total. Updated Measure E finance with Citizens for Laguna’s Future’s Form 460 covering July 1–September 19, including $11,905.74 received, $11,016.07 spent during the period and $11,478.48 cash at period end; linked the complete filing and clarified that prior accelerated transaction reports are not additional money.
• September 21, 2026Added KXFM’s organizer-published 10-question City Council results as a native yes/no comparison dashboard, linked each participant to a candidate profile and linked the transcription to KXFM’s original Facebook post. Updated the page title and search description to focus on the published questions and answers while retaining the short reel as a clip and stating that a complete replay has not been verified.
• September 18, 2026Embedded KXFM’s organizer-published Facebook reel on the September 8 forum page and updated its search title, description, structured video data, FAQ and internal links for “Laguna Beach City Council forum KXFM,” without describing the reel as a complete recording. Expanded the dedicated Measure E record with sourced information about NimbleGov PAC, its identified leadership and initiative history; linked its campaign videos with an advocacy-source disclosure; and revised the support-side finance wording to distinguish the known supporting committee from filings not located in the City search results as of September 11.
• September 14, 2026Expanded the completed CANDO candidate-forum page with neutral summaries of all seven answers from each of the nine City Council candidates, exact video timestamps and a searchable transcript of the complete recording. Added the same seven CANDO answer summaries and direct recording links to every individual Council candidate profile while retaining the earlier Village Laguna forum summaries.
• September 11, 2026Added CANDO’s complete September 10 Laguna Beach City Council candidate-forum recording to its permanent So Laguna event page. Embedded the organizer-published 1:59:24 YouTube video, updated the page title and search description, added VideoObject structured data and promoted CANDO as the latest completed forum across the Election Hub, homepage and all nine Council candidate profiles. KXFM’s September 8 forum remains accurately labeled as awaiting a permanent audio or video replay. Added Citizens for Laguna’s Future’s newly filed Form 497 reporting a $1,000 contribution received from Patrick Quilter on September 9; the contribution is displayed separately from the committee’s earlier $2,500 independent expenditure against Measure E.
• September 9, 2026Published Ashley Cintas’s complete response to So Laguna’s five-question City Council candidate questionnaire and added her candidate-supplied portrait throughout her profile, Election Hub, homepage candidate cards and forum candidate index. Added her candidate-supplied biography and attributed experience, updated seven issue summaries from her direct answers, and retained the same neutral disclosure and presentation used for other candidate responses. Added official Form 410 committee records for Mark Orgill, Joy Berry and Karen Martin. Marked the completed September 8 KXFM City Council and School Board forum as awaiting KXFM’s permanent audio or video recording and retained the official forum page across the Election Hub and applicable candidate profiles. Added the City Clerk’s newly listed September 15 Advocates for Laguna Residents City Council candidate forum at Council Chambers; a resident-supplied organizer notice describes the 6–8 p.m. event as focused on Laguna Beach hospital and emergency and acute-care services. Linked the sponsor’s City-filed Form 410 and 2026 Form 450 and identified it as general-purpose committee 1455392, with Alan Boinus as treasurer and principal officer.
• September 7, 2026Expanded Dee Perry’s and Joan Malczewski’s source-linked LBUSD voting records to their complete common tenure beginning January 12, 2023. Applied identical inclusion rules to both incumbents and separated the records at December 16, 2024, when Sheri Morgan and Howard Hills took office, so different Board compositions are not blended. Preserved substantive decisions, consent-calendar actions, yes, no, abstain and absence records while uniformly excluding routine adjournment, recess, convening, return-to-open-session and call-to-order motions. Clarified that prevailing-side percentages are descriptive context, not candidate scores.
• September 2, 2026Added Shaheen Sheik-Sadhal’s candidate-supplied portrait to her School Board profile and the shared candidate comparisons. Added the complete Village Laguna City Council candidate-forum recording, a searchable caption transcript and a neutral five-topic timestamp index for every Council candidate. Updated the Election Hub, all nine Council candidate profiles, forum cards and the So Laguna events calendar to link to the first-party video archive.
• September 2, 2026Added the Laguna Beach Firefighters Association’s source-linked endorsements of Sue Kempf, Mark Orgill and Alex Rounaghi to the Election Hub and their candidate profiles. Reviewed every currently published candidate-controlled campaign website for other 2026 endorsements; older or undated endorsements were not carried forward without current verification. Updated every shared candidate-forum module to emphasize the next event, move completed events into a readable past-forums section and identify whether a recording or recap has been linked.
• August 31, 2026Expanded the City-published independent candidate-forum schedule from five to eight events. Added CANDO’s September 10 virtual Laguna Canyon forum with its Zoom access and public question email; added the Laguna Canyon Conservancy’s September 28 forum and the South Laguna Civic Association’s October 6 forum; and corrected the Chamber forum from October 22 to October 15. Updated the Election Hub, all nine Council candidate profiles, homepage next-forum notice, forum article schedule, calendar and focused event pages from the shared source. The Conservancy’s own event page confirms Monday, September 28, with doors at 5:30 p.m. and the candidate panel from 6:30–8:30 p.m.
• August 28, 2026Published complete School Board questionnaire responses from Dee Perry, Elizabeth Bates and Shaheen Sheik-Sadhal; added campaign-approved portraits and photographer credits for Perry and Bates; and updated their attributed backgrounds, priorities and superintendent-transition context. Elevated Monday’s Village Laguna candidate forum near the top of the hub. Added a neutral Yes/No effect and a concrete resident example to every statewide proposition. Added source-linked official party-position icons; crosswalked CAGOP’s published identifiers to verified positions on Propositions 4, 5, 37 and 39, while unlisted measures link to the party source without inferring a position. Added balanced Measure E finance cards for supporting and opposing spending, including Citizens for Laguna’s Future’s August 27 Form 496 reporting a $2,500 independent expenditure against the measure.
• August 27, 2026Added neutral summaries of all 14 certified statewide propositions, including a specific explanation of each measure’s possible Laguna Beach connection and direct links to the Secretary of State and Legislative Analyst’s Office. Added the City-listed candidate-forum schedule then available to the Election Hub, all nine Council profiles and the So Laguna events calendar; the August 31 update above supersedes that initial schedule. Reviewed all nine City Council profiles against official City records and candidate-controlled sources; added concise candidate-specific summaries and direct City Clerk Form 501 and available Form 410/460 indexes. Expanded Nick Aronoff’s profile with his public campaign Instagram, a candidate interview and a sourced Laguna Canyon Road public comment. Updated Ashley Cintas’s profile and the finance comparison with her verified $7,000 Form 497 transaction. Published Kimberly Smith’s complete candidate response, added consistent factual role pills to School Board profiles and linked named organizations to their official pages. The guide distinguishes accelerated contribution reports from complete periodic totals.
• August 25, 2026Expanded the Laguna Beach School Board candidate guide with official ballot order, campaign-disclosure status and source-linked LBUSD voting records. Refined candidate-specific search titles, descriptions, authorship, Article schema and breadcrumb data across all 14 local candidate profiles.
• August 24, 2026Added source-linked voting-record comparisons for incumbent Laguna Beach City Council and LBUSD School Board candidates. Connected the election guide to the City meeting archive, municipal and school budgets, public-employee compensation, demographics and issue guides.
• August 21, 2026Added the School Board election overview and profiles for Dee Perry, Shaheen Sheik-Sadhal, Kimberly Smith, Elizabeth Bates and Joan Malczewski. Expanded the general election hub with Measure E term-limit information, LBUSD campaign-finance records and neutral context about the superintendent transition.
• August 20, 2026Updated Mark Orgill’s City Council candidate profile to separate current public roles from former affiliations and added direct links to the relevant Laguna Beach government committee records.
• August 19, 2026Expanded the nine City Council candidate profiles with official candidate-statement summaries, Form 700 economic-interest records, community and business roles, candidate photo galleries, sourced issue positions and campaign social links. Added Mark Orgill’s questionnaire responses and extended biography.
• August 14, 2026Published the unified Laguna Beach Election 2026 hub, homepage election overview, official City Council ballot order, candidate navigation and key voting dates for the November 3, 2026 general municipal election.
• August 13, 2026Launched So Laguna’s sourced 2026 City Council candidate profiles and campaign-finance comparison for Sue Kempf, Ashley Cintas, Laura Parisi, Mark Orgill, Nick Aronoff, Edward Bayuk, Joy Berry, Alex Rounaghi and Karen Martin.

Last substantively updated: September 14, 2026.