Napa voters in District 3 will choose between incumbent Councilmember Mary Luros and challenger Jim Hinton this fall. The contested race for the eastside seat follows Luros's unopposed District 3 run in 2022. The Nov. 3 general election pits a sitting attorney who has spent more than a decade in and around City Hall against a self-described political outsider who says he has attended more than 200 council meetings without ever holding office.
Two Very Different Résumés
Luros was appointed to the Napa City Council in January 2015 and won election to the seat in 2018, according to the City of Napa. She represents the city on the Napa Sanitation District board and serves as an alternate on the Napa-Vallejo Waste Management Authority. District 3 covers the eastern part of the city, as reported by The Press Democrat, which also notes Luros ran unopposed for the seat in 2022 after first winning an at-large council seat in 2018 with about 24 percent of the vote.
Hinton is making his second bid for a council seat after finishing with about 5.6 percent of the vote in a 2018 run, per the same Press Democrat account. The station describes him as a regular attendee of council meetings, and his campaign has said he stepped back from a political consulting career to care for his father. According to The Napa Valley Register, Hinton's campaign describes him as a lifelong Napa resident and “a relentless community advocate” who has attended more than 200 City Council meetings.
Housing, Fees and City Hall's Size
Both candidates have staked out positions on how Napa should grow. Luros, who moved to Napa in 2008, started a law firm with her husband and has two young children, says she wants to encourage accessory dwelling units and prioritize housing for teachers, first responders, hospitality workers, young families and seniors. She has said the city can make it easier, faster and cheaper to build projects that already follow city rules, and that Napa can still feel like a small town to her even as it grows, adding that growth and change are inevitable and that some change is necessary.
Hinton, by contrast, has said Napa's building fees increase the cost of new homes and wants to roll back permit fees. He also wants to slow luxury development by out-of-town developers. On the size and structure of city government, he says he would consider eliminating Napa's economic development division and would consider returning the city to a single assistant city manager, arguing that he is not a politician or a City Hall insider.
Cameras, Roads and Public Safety
One of the sharpest contrasts in the race centers on Napa's use of traffic enforcement technology. Hinton opposes the city's red-light cameras and license-plate readers and plans to introduce a motion to cancel those contracts if elected. He has also called for keeping Lincoln Avenue at four lanes and returning Browns Valley Road to its original layout, while praising Napa Fire's emergency medical response.
Luros has taken a different approach on spending, saying she wants to prioritize public safety, streets, parks and basic services and to revisit long-running city programs regularly to make sure they still work. She has also called for improving the city's communications in both English and Spanish and named housing affordability, public safety, quality of life and long-term financial health as the major challenges facing Napa. She wants to ensure the city is not overly reliant on outside consultants.
Planning the Former Harvest Campus
Recreation and public space have emerged as flashpoints too. Luros says she is proud of the city's purchase of the former Harvest Middle School site and wants to help decide how the nearby Old Sonoma Road property is used for parks and recreation. She has voted against extending a delayed hotel project at Soscol Avenue and First Street and opposed a proposed glamping resort, and she plans to advance one or two splash pads in Napa's park system during her first year of a new term.
The Harvest Middle School site itself has been in play since the campus closed in 2022, with city leaders and residents eyeing it for new housing and recreational amenities, according to a separate Press Democrat report. The city closed on the $25 million, 26.6-acre purchase from the Napa Valley Unified School District on Dec. 12, 2025, and has since awarded a planning and design agreement to Noll & Tam Architects, according to the City of Napa. The city launched community engagement this summer, including focus groups, town halls and pop-ups, as part of a three-phase planning process, and says existing recreational facilities on the site will stay open as long as possible while the future plan comes together.
Hinton, meanwhile, has focused on reviving community gatherings, saying he wants to bring back the Chef's Market, Porchfest, Blues, Brews & BBQ, car shows and Friday night concerts at Veterans Memorial Park. He has also said he plans to prioritize District 3 residents specifically in council decisions.
Luros is involved with the Kiwanis Club of Napa and the Children's Museum of Napa Valley. Napa's push to encourage granny flats has been building for years.
