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City of Thousand Oaks · Statewide General Election

Thousand Oaks City Council, District 3

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On the ballot

This person would hold one of five district seats on the Thousand Oaks City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Ventura County city of about 126,966 residents (2020 Census). The Council appoints a City Manager (Andrew Powers as of this cycle) to run day-to-day operations. A 4-year term. Thousand Oaks has no separately, directly elected Mayor -- the Council selects one of its own members annually to serve as the largely ceremonial presiding officer; Mikey Taylor currently holds it, with Bob Engler as Mayor Pro Tem. The city completed its transition from at-large to by-district elections under Ordinance No. 1715-NS (adopted July 18, 2023): Districts 4 (Al Adam) and 5 (Tie Gutierrez) were first elected by district in November 2024 and aren't up again until 2028. Districts 1, 2, and 3 -- the city's first-ever district elections for those three seats -- are up this cycle.

Incumbent David Newman, a former Planning Commission chair who cut the ribbon on the city's first homeless shelter as a prior rotating Mayor, faces challenger Victor Hayek, a Conejo Valley Unified School District deputy superintendent making his first run for elected office.

This person would hold one of five district seats on the Thousand Oaks City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use for this Ventura County city of about 126,966 residents. The Council appoints a City Manager (Andrew Powers) to run day-to-day operations. A 4-year term. Thousand Oaks has no separately, directly elected Mayor -- the Council selects one of its own members annually to serve as the largely ceremonial presiding officer; Newman himself held that title in the past, cutting the ribbon on the city's first homeless shelter during his term.

District 3 covers central and eastern Thousand Oaks, including the Oakbrook and Sunset Hills neighborhoods. This is literally the first time this seat has ever been elected by district: the city adopted by-district elections in 2023 (Ordinance No. 1715-NS), with Districts 4 and 5 first up in 2024 and Districts 1, 2, and 3 -- including this one -- up for the first time this cycle.

David Newman

The incumbent, a more than 25-year city resident first elected to Council in 2022 after eight years on the city's Planning Commission (including two terms as chair). He holds bachelor's degrees in humanities (Johns Hopkins, 1981) and photography (NYU, 1986) and owned a computer network engineering consultancy from 1999 to 2017. As a prior rotating Mayor, he points to opening the city's first homeless shelter -- which he says cut unsheltered homelessness nearly in half in its first year -- as his signature accomplishment. A second term would focus on infrastructure resilience (backup power and cybersecurity after public safety power shutoffs, hardened water/wastewater systems for wildfire response) and shifting new housing production toward units affordable to service workers and younger residents.

Strengths

Eight years of Planning Commission experience before his council term, direct rotating-Mayor experience, and a specific, verifiable accomplishment (the homeless shelter) with a stated outcome.

Trade-offs

A long institutional track record for voters to evaluate directly -- but no independent, non-campaign analysis of his specific votes was found this session.

Keep in mind

His housing platform explicitly favors pushing for more lower-income units than the current Regional Housing Needs Allocation ratio calls for -- a specific, checkable policy position rather than a vague pledge.

Victor Hayek

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised from age 7 in New Jersey; holds a B.S. in management and an MBA in finance from William Paterson University and a doctorate in educational leadership from Seton Hall University. Before moving into school administration, he owned a bagel store that grew to three locations and served as a police officer in Wayne, New Jersey, until an on-duty injury; he was then elected to his local school board and later worked as a private school's finance director and as superintendent of the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District. He moved to Thousand Oaks in 2015 and is currently deputy superintendent of business services for Conejo Valley Unified. He frames his campaign around three issues: safe streets, strong schools, and a thriving community, and supports the Downtown Project provided police staffing keeps pace with new development.

Strengths

A genuinely varied career -- small-business ownership, law enforcement, and two decades in school finance and administration, including a prior elected school-board term in New Jersey.

Trade-offs

No prior California or Thousand Oaks elected-office experience; his New Jersey school-board term is real elected experience but in a different state and a different kind of office.

Keep in mind

He supports the Downtown Project but stresses managing growth 'one project at a time' with local control -- a similar cautious-support framing to Karen Arreola's in District 1, a pattern worth noticing across this cycle's challengers.

Source review: Very strong (92/100) · 9 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

  • clerkrecorder.venturacounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters -- "Contest/Candidate Proof List" (report CFMR001, dated Aug. 18, 2026, on-ballot contests only; already cached locally from earlier in this session and re-checked here): confirms Thousand Oaks's three November 2026 city contests -- City Council District 1 (incumbent Mikey Taylor, "Councilmember/Business Owner"; challenger Karen Arreola, "Retired Biotech Executive"; a third filer shown but not qualified), District 2 (Kyle Rohrbach, "Executive Producer"; Gus Gougas, "Businessman/Business Owner"; a third filer shown but not qualified, no incumbent among the two qualified), and District 3 (incumbent David Newman, "City Councilmember"; challenger Victor Hayek, "Deputy Superintendent") -- and no District 4 or District 5 contest
  • clerkrecorder.venturacounty.gov (opens in a new tab)Ventura County Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters -- Contest/Candidate Proof List, off-ballot companion document (single-filer and Elections Code Section 10229 contests): carries no District 1, 2, or 3 entry for the City of Thousand Oaks -- corroborating by absence that none of the three was cancelled or moved off-ballot; its one Thousand Oaks entry is a non-districted, zero-filer legacy contest code (6491) listing Bob Engler, David Newman, and Mikey Taylor as the city's current incumbents, consistent with the city's own roster but not itself a live 2026 contest
  • toaks.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Thousand Oaks -- "Elections" page (City Clerk): independently republishes the identical certified roster as the county's own document -- District 1 (One Seat): Karen Arreola, Mikey Taylor; District 2 (One Seat): Kyle Rohrbach, Gus Gougas; District 3 (One Seat): Victor Hayek, David Newman -- in ballot order per the Secretary of State's Aug. 13, 2026 randomized alphabetical drawing; states the nomination period is closed
  • toaks.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Thousand Oaks -- "City Council" page: the Council is five members elected by district serving 4-year staggered terms; the Council annually selects a Mayor (Mikey Taylor, term expires 12/15/2026) and Mayor Pro Tem (Bob Engler, term expires 12/15/2026) from among its own members; names the full roster including Councilmember, District 4 Al Adam and Councilmember, District 5 Tie Gutierrez (both terms expire 12/12/2028) and Councilmember David Newman (term expires 12/15/2026); gives each member's bio
  • toaks.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Thousand Oaks -- "District Elections" page: states the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 1715-NS on July 18, 2023, implementing a five-member by-district election system, with Districts 4 and 5 first up in 2024 and Districts 1, 2, and 3 up in 2026 -- confirming this is the city's first-ever district election for Districts 1-3
  • toaks.gov (opens in a new tab)City of Thousand Oaks -- "City Manager's Office" page: names Andrew Powers as the current City Manager
  • toacorn.com (opens in a new tab)Thousand Oaks Acorn -- "Council candidate roster set" (Michael Montalvo, Aug. 28, 2026): a full-length, six-candidate profile piece confirming the certified roster and giving each candidate's own biography, career background, and stated top priorities in their own words, including that District 2 (Rancho Conejo, Wildwood Regional Park, Cal Lutheran) is an open seat because Bob Engler -- who lives in the district -- isn't seeking re-election, and that all six candidates support the recently approved Downtown Project
  • toacorn.com (opens in a new tab)Thousand Oaks Acorn -- "Thousand Oaks City Council races begin as candidate filing opens" (Michael Montalvo, Jul. 17, 2026): reports Bob Engler's own quoted reason for retiring ("it's probably time for me to step aside and let someone younger come in and move the city forward"); names each district's neighborhoods (District 1 Newbury Park, District 2 Rancho Conejo, District 3 central/eastern Thousand Oaks including Oakbrook and Sunset Hills); and names an early District 2 filer, independent contractor Bradley Poteet, who does not appear on the later-certified two-candidate roster
  • en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- "Thousand Oaks, California": used in this shard only for its 2020 Census population figure (126,966)

Last updated September 1, 2026.