Councilman Villegas, meet Trustee Villegas.

For West Sacramento City Councilman Oscar Villegas and his wife, Washington Unified School District trustee-elect Katie Villegas, the titles are an afterthought.

Forget about celebrating their twin election wins. That was two weeks ago. There's too much work ahead.

The husband and wife are helping to shape the direction of West Sacramento and how its schools educate its children in one of the region's most diverse school districts.

"This formalizes it," Oscar Villegas said of the election results, "but the love for the city doesn't change. The work is still there and you're going to roll up your sleeves."

Both have big jobs in a diverse, growing city, but service is second nature to a pair one Yolo County leader calls the city's unofficial "first couple."

Oscar Villegas is a city councilman and a West Sacramentan, the former since 2000, the latter since birth, born and raised in the city's Broderick area.

Katie Villegas is a brand-new school district trustee, picking up more votes than anyone else in the school board race Nov. 6.

Long involved in children's and family issues in West Sacramento, she's been the executive director of the Yolo Children's Alliance since 2006. The Davis-based nonprofit works to ensure the county's children have access to affordable health care. It also combats child abuse in the home and recruits foster parents for Yolo County children.

"They're an interesting couple – they're not political science majors, they're just really genuine, active people in the community," said West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon. "They always bring it back to what does it mean for people, for families and kids."

For the Villegases, both 46, their bond is nearly as deep as their roots in West Sacramento. They met at 19 in a criminal justice class at California State University, Sacramento; their first date was a precinct walk for Yolo County sheriff's candidate Bill Martinez.

For Oscar Villegas, thoughts of service developed early.

"I remember when I was 22 or 23 and writing letters to the City Council. I visualized that this is where I'm going to raise my kids," he said. "I always had this vision, to be able to grow up here, to be able to have that history and say, 'Here are the things I want to preserve and here are the things that I absolutely want to change.' "

His route took him to the city's Planning Commission and the Port of West Sacramento board. For the past dozen years, he's served on a City Council that helped guide West Sacramento through a transformative period of growth and relative fiscal stability that has made the city a regional envy.

Katie Villegas took a slightly different path. Raised in Sacramento's River Park neighborhood, she said West Sacramento may as well have been a distant land.

"I'd never been to West Sacramento. I thought the world ended in Old Sac," she said.

But she volunteered at the Harper House, a West Sacramento domestic violence shelter, while in graduate school at Sacramento State. There, she ran the children's program for a summer and it's when, she said, she "fell in love with West Sacramento."

Other work followed – a state job, community organizations, the Sacramento Children's Home – and then a family.

With two children at home, Villegas worked part time, building ties in the community that ultimately led to the Yolo Children's Alliance.

Today, Katie Villegas "brings a knowledge of the whole community," Cabaldon said. "She has an authentic knowledge of how people are struggling to succeed."

And the work helped inspire her to run for the Washington Unified school board.

"It's about what West Sacramento needs," she said. "The city has doubled since Oscar was first on the City Council and students and families seem to need a little more help. When you have an opportunity, those doors need to be opened."

New opportunities, new roles, same goal.

"They've always put more into the community than they've taken out," said Yolo County Supervisor Mike McGowan, a longtime friend, who calls the pair the "true first couple of West Sacramento. They're two very smart, hardworking people and, together, they're just about unbeatable."

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