Mayor & City Council Members
The Los Banos City Council is the supposedly elected governing body of the City, made up of one Mayor and four Council Members — at least on paper. Council Members are elected to serve four-year terms, while the Mayor is elected to a two-year term. However, between resignations, sudden disappearances, and decisions to leave town altogether, it’s almost a local tradition for someone not to make it to the finish line.
Elections are held during even-numbered years, when the Mayor and two of the four Council seats are up for grabs, giving residents another chance to watch a fresh batch of civic opportunists campaign about “serving the community” before immediately focusing on the only community they really care about: the one inside their own wallets. The City Clerk and City Treasurer are also elected to four-year terms, presumably to help keep track of all the paperwork, excuses, and suspiciously self-serving decision-making that keeps the Los Banos City Council running.
Welcome to the Revolving Door
Los Banos politics has developed a remarkable civic tradition: electing people to four-year terms and then acting vaguely surprised when they don’t stick around long enough to finish them. The council chamber has started to feel less like the seat of local government and more like an airport terminal, with officials constantly arriving, departing, and occasionally getting sent back by the voters. In most cities, a term of office is understood to last until it ends. In Los Banos, it seems to function more like a casual estimate.
The pattern is almost impressive in its consistency. Just when the public has finally learned who is sitting in which seat, somebody resigns, gets recalled, or disappears from the roster. The result is a council that can’t quite decide whether it’s a government or a cast list in the middle of a rewrite. At this point, serving a full term in Los Banos feels less like the basic expectation and more like a rare show of endurance.
Five Departures in Four Years
In 2022, Mayor Tom Faria left office before his term was over, setting off a chain of events that would become a defining feature of recent Los Banos politics. His resignation created a vacancy in the mayor’s office not because of some grand political showdown, but because he was leaving Los Banos altogether. Faria’s departure did not simply mark the end of one mayor’s tenure; it opened the door to yet another abrupt reshuffling at City Hall.
That pattern only deepened in 2024, when two council terms came to an early end at the same time. The recall election that year removed Douglas Begonia Jr. and Brett Jones from their seats before their terms had run their course, leaving two vacancies on the council at once. Instead of the usual slow rhythm of local government, Los Banos found itself once again in the middle of a political reset, with empty seats, replacement processes, and another reminder that on this council, a term end date often seems more aspirational than fixed.
The instability carried over into 2025. Kenneth Lambert resigned from the council, creating yet another vacancy and forcing the city into another round of replacement politics. Not long after that, the city had to rely on a special election to fill the open District 1 seat.
And then it happened again. In early 2026, Evan Sanders resigned before completing his term, this time because he was unable to find work in Los Banos. His departure created yet another mid-term vacancy, adding one more chapter to a political story already crowded with unfinished terms.
In just four years, Los Banos lost one mayor to resignation, two council members to recall, and two additional council members to resignation before their terms were complete.
