San Juan's 2012 General Election Guide

As we look ahead to November’s general election, San Juan Capistrano Patch is devoted to bringing you the information you need about every race in town. Here’s our start on the candidates and issues we'll be covering as November draws near.

Two seats are open on the San Juan Capistrano City Council. They're currently held by Laura Freese, a first-termer, and Sam Allevato, who's been on the council since 2004.

. There are six candidates:

The will have four trustee seats open. Two are held by John Alpay and Gary Pritchard, who were just .

When the board , Trustee Sue Palazzo's residence was not included in her area, so she may not run for re-election and has said she wasn't planning to, anyway.

Trustee Jack Brick is the other trustee whose seat is up this year. He has not indicated whether he will make another go of it.

This is the first year where voters can only vote for one trustee because of the passage of .

So, two of the seats open this year include parts of San Juan Capistrano in the trustee areas. These are the candidates in Trustee Area No. 1:

And these are the candidates in Trustee Area No. 2:

• Don Franklin Richardson

The 49th U.S. congressional district is new to San Juan Capistrano, after we were redistricted out of Rep. Ken Calvert's district. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa  is the incumbent. He's been representing his district, which includes North San Diego County and South Riverside County, since 2001.

Democrat Jerry Tetalman.

In the 73rd Assembly District, Diane Harkey took a commanding lead in the primaries with nealry 70 percent of the vote. But rival Jim Corbett, a teacher at known for his over allegedly irreligious comments, says he'll be in November.

Be sure to check out our past coverage of the candidates by clicking on their names and bookmark this page for updates on the races.