Big changes are underway in the city of Tustin, where on Nov. 3 voters will decide who will lead the evolving city for the next four years.
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The two candidates, former councilmember Letitia Clark and incumbent Austin Lumbard, have each served as Tustin’s mayor, with their leadership tested by very different crises. Clark helped guide Tustin through the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests and political tension that followed George Floyd’s killing in 2020 in Minnesota, while Lumbard helped navigate the city through the aftermath of the 2023 North Hangar fire, including getting its coffers reimbursed for the emergency response.
Their individual approaches to city leadership could shape the direction Tustin takes at another pivotal time — one that includes several key developments underway at Tustin Legacy, where the future of the South Hangar is also in question.
If elected, Clark said housing would be a priority, and she aims to bring back a version of Tustin’s “workforce housing” program that she championed, partnering with groups such as the Orange County Business Council and affordable-housing nonprofit Jamboree. The program required developers on certain projects to set aside 15% of units as below-market rate or pay the city in-lieu fees earmarked for affordable housing, before the council suspended it in 2024.
Her approach, she said, prioritizes thoughtful planning that focuses on building mixed-income neighborhoods and developing a diverse housing portfolio near public transit, parks, and community areas, while ensuring that public safety resources, shopping, and other services remain accessible.
Those options could range from single-family homes and apartments to senior living, permanent supportive, and emergency housing, “so that you could have a very low-income family living right next door to an affluent family, and no one would know the difference.”
Lumbard called Tustin “the Mayberry of Orange County,” talking about the city’s founding in the post-Civil War era by Columbus Tustin before incorporating in 1927. He also likened the city to Radiator Springs, a once-bustling fictional town on Route 66 in the Pixar film “Cars” that was sidelined when a new interstate let drivers bypass it.
“Everybody used to stop in our Old Town and get their tires changed, and they’d go across the street and get a glass of lemonade,” he said. “The 5 freeway went in, and it kind of got bypassed. We’re bringing that back.”
“We have a lot going on in our city,” Lumbard said of Tustin’s evolution to today. “We’ve got about 80,000 residents, but we’re not in the news a lot because we don’t have flashy headlines.”
He credits a post-pandemic exodus from Los Angeles with helping fill Tustin’s business parks.
More tecent additions to Tustin include aerospace and space travel company Virgin Galactic’s headquarters at the Flight campus, EV manufacturer and auto tech company Rivian’s industrial purchases north of Walnut Avenue, military tech firm Anduril’s 178,000-square-foot lease this spring and Taiwanese company Advantech’s new $96 million North American headquarters.
“Those are the type of companies that we want,” he said, “and the type of jobs that we want.”
If reelected, Lumbard said he’ll champion efforts to continue attracting more employers to the city. He added that Tustin prides itself on its military history and that “a defense contractor wants to be where the military’s embraced.”
His other priority is establishing an “actual plan” for the Tustin Legacy area. One that is “documented, adopted, and executed.”
Also on that list is securing a deal with the Navy for the federally owned 85 acres around the former North Hangar site, which Lumbard said he wants settled “in the next couple years,” though he noted the timeline isn’t his to control. “The Navy is focused on fighting a war right now, not on what’s gonna happen in Tustin with 85 acres.”
An attorney at Fluor, a global construction and engineering firm with a federal government business line, Lumbard moved into Columbus Square with his family in the early 2010s. Living on the former Marine Corps Air Station, he recalled feeling frustrated by the lack of development around him.
“The base had been closed for almost 15 years. It seemed like progress had stalled, at least from an outside perspective,” he said.
He said he called Al Murray, Tustin’s mayor at the time, with questions: “Why is this going so slowly? Where are the obstacles?” He was invited down to City Hall, he said, where Murray suggested he apply to the Planning Commission. Lumbard said he joined despite having “no idea what a planning commission was.”
He served for five and a half years before he was elected to the City Council in 2018. In 2022, he became the city’s first directly elected mayor. The role was previously filled by council members appointing one of their own.
A year later, on Nov. 7, 2023, a fire broke out at the North Hangar shortly before 1 a.m. Not long after, Lumbard said he was woken by a knock at the door — a Tustin police captain stood outside. “Mr. Mayor, you need to get dressed,” the captain told him. “The hangar’s on fire.”
“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Lumbard recalled. He said he could see the North Hangar from his front step, about half a mile away.
The North Hangar burned for 24 days, and Lumbard said it quickly became clear that the Navy, which owns the structure, “couldn’t help or was not going to help.” He said the Navy’s first offer of $1 million fell significantly short of what the cleanup would ultimately cost — closer to $130 million, according to Lumbard.
With an acting city manager in place, the council agreed to front the money and hire its own contractors, taking “a significant financial risk” in the process. He said the city is now almost fully reimbursed.
“Looking back, it’s a success story,” Lumbard said. “In the middle of it, there were a lot of balls in the air.”
When asked to describe himself, Lumbard said he is a husband and father first. He said he ran for council “to have an input in our future,” and described the Planning Commission as more of an administrative review, but “not really a place where you can implement policy.”
“When I’m done with this, I’ll find another way to serve,” he said, noting the city’s term limits allow everyone to “take your turn.”
Both candidates previously ran for council seats in 2016. Clark came in second, and Lumbard, running with an opposing slate, finished fourth. In the run-up to that race, Clark said she was advised to run as an independent, while some suggested she not include a photo on her mailers so voters wouldn’t know her race.
A Black woman and single mother of twins at the time, she said she refused all of it.
“Look, I am who I am. They will find out eventually,” she said. “I want to know that if I win, it’s because people knew exactly who I was. And if I don’t win, and the city’s not ready to elect someone like me — then that’s OK, too.”
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Then in 2020, nine people vied for three council seats, including Clark, who came out on top with more than 15,000 votes — which she said was the most a candidate has earned in Tustin’s history. She said her colleagues then voted to appoint her to the mayoral role, making her the city’s first Black woman to serve as mayor, and its first woman in that role in nearly two decades.
“A lot of folks are asking, what can the mayor do? It’s just another vote on the City Council,” Clark said.
“I think the mayor has a big hand in what the tone is of the council, and the staff, and the direction and the vision of the city,” she said. “The mayor is the spokesperson, and we can use that platform for good or for bad — or do nothing with it.”
In 2020, Clark authored a proclamation welcoming peaceful protest at the height of the George Floyd demonstrations, one she said colleagues initially resisted, but she got the council to vote unanimously in favor of.
She said the city now has an opportunity to steer funds toward immigration resources and to help those who may be suffering or experiencing adverse interactions with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “This isn’t Santa Ana’s problem. This isn’t an Irvine problem. We have concerns right here in Tustin.”
Clark said there should be a formal statement from the city to make sure Tustin residents feel safe, inform them of their rights and offer support, including legal aid, if they don’t.
Last year, video footage showed armed Border Patrol agents physically beating and detaining Tustin resident Narciso Barranco — a landscaper and father of three U.S. Marines — during a June 2025 stop in Santa Ana. The footage made national headlines and drew widespread condemnation.
Councilmember Lee Fink was the only Tustin council member to address the incident from the dais, telling colleagues that he had met with Barranco.
“I’ve gone on record saying the silence is deafening,” said Clark, adding that some people outside the city still hold an “age-old perception” of Tustin as a predominantly white, suburban conservative community. “I have to fact-check them,” she said, adding that the city’s makeup is predominantly Latino, with a growing Asian American population and several Title I schools serving low-income families.
When asked about the use of force incident involving Barranco and federal immigration agents, Lumbard said, “This seems like a Santa Ana issue — I’m mayor of Tustin and I’m very proud of how we’ve been able to keep people from all walks of life safe in our city.”
“The credit is largely due to the professionalism and bravery of our police and firefighters,” he said.
Clark, now the chief communications officer for the South Orange County Community College District, attended Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black college in New Orleans. It was there that she said seeing Black women run for office pushed her to switch from pre-law to political science and public administration. After graduating, she went to work for the city of New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina hit just a year later in 2005.
Then 22, she stayed on as “essential personnel,” losing her car and apartment to the floodwaters, living in a hotel for six months and walking to work. She called those formative years proof she “could do hard things,” and the reason she seeks positions of influence to help.
A decade later, she returned to Tustin. She said her experience at Tustin High before heading off to college helped shape the strong, positive associations she holds with the city, which she described as a “melting pot.”
“I’m pretty sure I was the first Black homecoming queen. I was just all involved,” she recalled. She was also a cheerleader, ran track and served as senior class president.
Clark attributed a lot of the diversity to the military families stationed at the former Marine Corps Air Station.
“A lot of them had just lived all over the world,” she recalled, describing kids of different backgrounds hanging out with each other — creating the “very inclusive, very open” image of Tustin that Clark said she wants her own children to grow up in.
But that vision extends beyond her own family. Clark also wants to see more union labor on major projects, arguing that hiring locally keeps money circulating in the community. On several occasions, she said, residents have approached her with the same message: “I live in Tustin, and I wanna be able to work on jobs in Tustin.”
While she acknowledges that Tustin has never had a formal community workforce agreement, Clark said she has built relationships with union carpenters and laborers to prepare the groundwork for such a policy.
She also said the former Marine Corps Air Station is a key opportunity to implement her goals for mixed-income workforce housing and community services.
“The future of the base must support those priorities rather than place additional burdens on existing communities. I would bring residents, veterans, businesses and service providers into the planning process early so development reflects Tustin’s most pressing needs and includes the necessary infrastructure,” she said.
Clark said she believes the development of the base should go hand-in-hand with a more inclusive, proactive leadership style. One that ensures residents of all backgrounds, especially those in the “far corners” of the community, feel seen and welcomed.
Though Tustin Legacy is where most of the city’s future development will be happening, Lumbard said it isn’t just about what gets built, but also what it funds.
“As we realize revenue from land sales and development on the Legacy, we can help fund other parts of town,” he said, pointing to the streetscape overhaul now under construction in Old Town, where crews are rebuilding sidewalks along El Camino Real and Main Street.
“The focus shouldn’t all be on just the Legacy,” he said. “We focus on every part of town, including our border with Santa Ana.”
He said the city is replicating that model beyond Old Town, including with a joint-use park behind Heideman Elementary, where a once-fenced-off school field is being opened in the evenings and on weekends for a southwest Tustin neighborhood that lacked park space.
Ballots for the Nov. 3 election began arriving in mailboxes of registered voters earlier this week. They may be returned by mail or at an OC Registrar of Voters dropbox around town now; vote centers will begin their phased opening on Oct. 24.
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