# Thousand Oaks City Council, District 3 Compare records and positions simply between Victor Hayek or David Newman for Thousand Oaks City Council, District 3 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person would hold one of five district seats on Thousand Oaks City Council. They vote on city laws, the budget, and land use. Thousand Oaks is a Ventura County city of about 126,966 residents. The Council appoints a City Manager, Andrew Powers, to run day-to-day operations. The term is four years. Thousand Oaks has no directly elected Mayor. Each year, the Council picks one member as a ceremonial presiding officer. Mikey Taylor currently holds that role. Bob Engler serves as Mayor Pro Tem. The city moved from at-large to district elections under Ordinance No. 1715-NS. The city council adopted it on July 18, 2023. Districts 4 and 5 were first elected by district in November 2024. Al Adam holds District 4, and Tie Gutierrez holds District 5. Neither is up again until 2028. Districts 1, 2, and 3 are up this cycle. These are the city's first-ever district elections for those three seats. - Jurisdiction: City of Thousand Oaks - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/thousand-oaks-council-3 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 1, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 92 out of 100 (Very strong), across 9 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Victor Hayek** — Deputy Superintendent - **David Newman** — City Councilmember · Incumbent A nonpartisan office: candidates do not run as Democrats or Republicans, and no party appears on the ballot. 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. They vote on 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. The term is four years. 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:** He served eight years on the Planning Commission before his council term. He has direct rotating-Mayor experience. He points to one specific accomplishment with a stated outcome, the homeless shelter. **Trade-offs:** He has a long institutional track record for voters to evaluate. No independent, non-campaign analysis of his specific votes was found. **Keep in mind:** His housing platform favors pushing for more lower-income units than the current Regional Housing Needs Allocation ratio calls for. That is a specific, checkable 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:** He has a varied career. It covers small-business ownership, law enforcement, and two decades in school finance and administration. He also served an elected school-board term in New Jersey. **Trade-offs:** He has no prior California or Thousand Oaks elected office. His New Jersey school-board term is real elected experience. It came in a different state and a different kind of office. **Keep in mind:** He supports the Downtown Project. He stresses managing growth one project at a time with local control. That framing is close to Karen Arreola's in District 1, a pattern worth noticing across this cycle's challengers. ## Sources 1. [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](https://clerkrecorder.venturacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/cfmcfmr001_contcanddataproof_08-18-2026-on-ballot-alpha-order-applied.pdf) 2. [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](https://clerkrecorder.venturacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/cfmcfmr001_contcanddataproof_08-17-2026-off-ballot.pdf) 3. [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](https://www.toaks.gov/index.php?section=elections) 4. [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](https://www.toaks.gov/index.php?section=citycouncil) 5. [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](https://www.toaks.gov/index.php?section=districts) 6. [City of Thousand Oaks -- "City Manager's Office" page: names Andrew Powers as the current City Manager](https://www.toaks.gov/index.php?section=citymanager) 7. [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](https://www.toacorn.com/articles/council-candidate-roster-set/) 8. [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](https://www.toacorn.com/articles/thousand-oaks-city-council-races-begin-as-candidate-filing-opens/) 9. [Wikipedia -- "Thousand Oaks, California": used in this shard only for its 2020 Census population figure (126,966)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Oaks,_California) ## The rest of the ballot Thousand Oaks City Council, District 3 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Thousand Oaks City Council, District 3 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/thousand-oaks-council-3 (sources last retrieved September 1, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.