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The San Ramon City Council is set Tuesday to weigh a proposed resolution to establish election spending limits for its four district seats and mayor, with three of those elections on the horizon later this year.
Following a policy meeting discussion on the topic, city staff are proposing a resolution that would formalize voluntary campaign expenditure limits for this year’s election based on a per-vote calculation, with a maximum of $91,453 proposed for mayoral campaigns, a $39,938 limit for the District 2 seat and a $36,597 limit for the District 4 seat.
The November ballot will include elections for the mayoral seat currently occupied by Mark Armstrong, who is seeking a second two-year term. District 4 Councilmember Marisol Rubio, who was elected in 2022, and District 2 Councilmember Richard Adler, who was appointed in 2025, have also filed candidate intention statements to defend their seats.
The proposed limitations up for discussion at this week’s council meeting mark an increase compared to those for 2024, in which limits were set at $75,282 for mayor, $30,263 for District 1, and $27,820 for District 3. That comes out to $1.50 per vote for the mayor’s seat and $2.50 per vote for the council seats, with those numbers increased to $1.75 and $2.75 respectively in the proposed resolution.
Expenses for all campaigns in the 2024 election came out to well under those limits, with the exception of Vasanth Shetty, who lost a tight race to Robert Jweinat for the District 1 seat in 2024. Shetty’s spending came out to just over the limit at $2.53 per vote and $30,619 total.
While relatively modest, Shetty’s campaign was the highest-funded one for City Council in the past two elections, with Rubio’s 2022 campaign coming in second at $18,136 in total spending, which amounted to $1.45 per vote.
Although the three-way mayoral race in 2022 between Dave Hudson, Sabina Zafar and Dinesh Govindarao saw the most spending of any city races over the past two elections – but still well under the expenditure limits in place at the time – the 2024 election between Armstrong and Chirag Kathrani was another modest affair financially, with the candidates spending $12,646 and $19,138 respectively for between 25 cents and 31 cents per vote.
It is at the council’s discretion whether or not to approve the increased campaign spending limits recommended by the policy committee in the proposed resolution, to maintain the 2024 limits, or to instead lower the limits “to encourage lower-cost campaigns and reduce campaign spending overall”, according to a staff report from deputy city manager Christina Franco and city clerk Joan Snashall.
Further, it is at each candidates discretion whether or not to agree to the voluntary campaign spending limitations acccording to state law.
The San Ramon City Council is set to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday (June 9). The agenda is available here.
In other business
* The council is set to issue a proclamation recognizing June as LGBTQ Pride Month.
* The council will discuss a proposed resolution to change the start time for its regular meetings to 6:30 p.m.
* The council is set to vote on proposed updates to its lighting and landscaping district assessments schedule.
* The Teen Council is set to provide its annual report.
* The council is set to hear a quarterly investment report.
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