Last updated
Long before he ran for mayor, Jim Reape was talking about the connection between a healthier town and safer ways to walk and bicycle. The family nurse practitioner and physician assistant joined Turlock’s Planning Commission in 2017. His 2026 campaign brings those interests together with a call for steadier leadership at City Hall.
Reape is seeking the mayor’s office in the November 3, 2026 election against incumbent Amy Bublak and Kelley Coelho. The Modesto Bee’s September candidate questionnaire described him as a first-time candidate for elected office. He said he was retiring from family practice that year and wanted to continue serving the community.
A career built in Turlock
Family Medical Group lists him as James Reape, PA-C, NP. His career has been in family medicine, at a practice caring for children and adults through wellness visits, chronic conditions and everyday health needs.
The Journal’s May 2025 campaign-launch report also documented his military background. Reape was a U.S. Air Force sergeant and served in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. By the time he announced his mayoral campaign, he had spent about three decades working in Turlock medicine and raised five children.
His kickoff was April 29, 2025, well before the election year. At that stage, Reape told the Journal that retirement and grown children would give him time to take on a larger civic role. He expressed respect for Bublak’s years of service while arguing that a different leadership style would benefit the city.
The civic record before the campaign
Reape’s involvement predates his Planning Commission appointment. A May 6, 2014 city agenda packet lists him on Mayor John Lazar’s Economic Development Task Force. The accompanying draft strategic plan examined business retention, recruitment and the relationship between local employers and the city. It also raised familiar concerns about the small-business permit process and maintaining streets. That places Reape in those discussions years before the present mayoral contest, without making him the author of the task force’s collective recommendations.
When the council appointed him to the Planning Commission in January 2017, the Journal’s introduction of the new commissioners described a resident who had lived here for 25 years. His wife was a third-generation Turlocker. Outside work, his interests included running, woodworking and skiing.
More revealing was what he wanted to bring to the commission. Reape had already served on the citizens’ committee for Turlock’s Active Transportation Plan. He connected safe routes for people traveling without cars to healthier, more active lives, and wanted that perspective carried into future development decisions. The link between his medical work and his planning interests was already explicit in 2017.
The city also lists Reape on its Cannabis Ad-Hoc Committee alongside councilmembers Cassandra Abram and Kevin Bixel and fellow planning commissioner Matt Davis.
What he is asking voters to change
Reape’s campaign website emphasizes continuity, relationships and long-term planning. Its main priorities are:
- City Hall stability: retain professional expertise, develop staff and make collaboration part of the city’s working culture.
- Public safety: support police and firefighters and restore local control of fire leadership.
- Roads: maintain streets after the current repairs, rather than allow another cycle of deterioration.
- Growth: update the General Plan with community participation and plan for future families.
- Business and everyday life: make City Hall easier to work with, pursue living-wage jobs and invest in parks and gathering places.
These are his proposed priorities. Their practical test would be the budgets, policies and council support behind them.
On roads, he has offered a more specific idea: preventative maintenance and a fund for future upkeep. In the Journal’s account of the September candidates forum, he questioned whether streets repaired together could also wear out together decades later.
His fire-service position also has a record beyond campaign language. The Bee’s March 25, 2026 reporting identified Reape among the speakers urging local control when the council considered negotiations over Modesto’s fire-administration agreement. The council voted 3–2 to negotiate a new agreement. Reape was speaking as a member of the public, not casting one of those votes. His advocacy and the council’s decision are distinct parts of that record. The final amended fire-administration agreement passed unanimously in May 2026.
The October debate—and the job he wants
Reape joined Bublak and Coelho at the October 7 debate at Stanislaus State, hosted by the Journal and Modesto Focus with the university. It put the three candidates before the same audience and moderators less than a month before Election Day.
Asked why he chose a mayoral race, the Bee reported, Reape said his district had good representation and he wanted to serve the whole city.
The Journal’s post-debate interviews found several attendees favoring Reape’s approach. Those eight audience interviews were reactions from people in the room, not a representative voter poll or an election result.
Turlock uses a council-manager form of government: elected councilmembers set policy and approve the budget; the city manager directs daily administration. A mayor needs colleagues’ support to turn an agenda into city action.
For the wider contest, read our 2026 mayoral race report. Our local representatives directory explains who currently holds each office; the city elections page provides official election information.
Read the other 2026 mayoral candidate profiles: Amy Bublak, Kelley Coelho.
This independent profile examines a public official’s public record and statements. Send documented corrections or responses to LocalTurlock.
