Built Here, Ready to Fix City Hall: Why Tim Gaspar Should Represent the West San Fernando Valley

A Canoga Park native who built one of L.A.’s largest independent insurance firms, Gaspar brings the business sense, public-safety focus and broad coalition the 3rd District needs. On November 3, vote Tim Gaspar for City Council.

Ask anyone in Woodland Hills, Reseda or Winnetka how City Hall treats the West San Fernando Valley, and you’ll likely get some version of the same answer: it doesn’t think about us much at all. Permits crawl. Encampments linger. Response times stretch. The Valley pays in and waits for its turn.

This fall, the roughly 260,000 residents of Council District 3 have a chance to send someone downtown who has spent his whole life here and knows exactly what that wait feels like. That person is Tim Gaspar.

A Valley story, start to finish

Gaspar isn’t a transplant who discovered the West Valley on a campaign map. He was born and raised in Canoga Park, went through local public schools, and graduated from El Camino Real High School, Pierce College and Cal State Northridge. He and his wife, Christina, an attorney, are raising their two kids in Woodland Hills.

In 2008, in the teeth of the financial crisis, he started Gaspar Insurance. It was not an obvious moment to launch a business. He built it anyway, into one of the largest independent insurance firms in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, with more than 60 employees and roughly 11,000 clients. He sold the firm in 2021 and is now campaigning full-time.

That résumé matters, and not as a bumper sticker. An insurance broker’s whole job is showing up for people on the worst day of their lives, after the fire, the break-in, the flood, and then navigating a maze of rules to get them made whole. That’s not a bad description of what a good council office should do for constituents.

Gaspar has also put in years on the civic side: board and leadership roles with Discovery Cube Los Angeles, the Metropolitan YMCA of Los Angeles, the Woodland Hills/Warner Center Chamber of Commerce, and CSUN’s Nazarian School of Business, among others.

Why a business voice matters now

The Los Angeles City Council is made up largely of people whose careers have been spent in government offices, policy shops and advocacy organizations. Those are honorable paths. But a 15-member body that writes a $14 billion budget, sets permitting rules for every storefront and restaurant in the city, and oversees more than 40 departments could use at least one member who has actually met a payroll.

Gaspar makes this case plainly. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he argued that the council is “missing the business perspective,” and that sometimes leaders must make unpopular calls for the broader good. At a moment when the city faces persistent budget shortfalls and has to get ready for the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics, that instinct is overdue.

It matters locally too. The district is in the middle of a transformation: the old Woodland Hills Promenade is coming down to make way for Rams Village, a new NFL training facility and shopping complex, and the long-vacant former rocket-engine site in Canoga Park still awaits cleanup and a future. Getting projects like these right, so they deliver jobs, tax revenue and neighborhood amenities rather than traffic and broken promises, requires someone who understands how deals actually get done.

A clear, practical agenda

Gaspar’s platform centers on four priorities, and each one is concrete.

Public safety. Gaspar wants a fully staffed, well-trained LAPD and fire department, modernized equipment and vehicles, and technology that cuts paperwork so officers spend more time in the field. He has said he would not have voted for the current city budget because it shortchanged law enforcement. The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing rank-and-file officers, has endorsed him, as have the deputy sheriffs’ association and other public-safety groups.

Small business and jobs. He proposes a top-to-bottom review of the city’s permitting and licensing processes so new businesses can open faster, a crackdown on unlicensed operators who undercut honest owners, and redirecting money from underperforming incentive programs into job-training pipelines that prepare Valley young people for skilled, well-paid careers.

Homelessness. Gaspar’s view is that after nearly two decades and billions of dollars, Angelenos are entitled to results. He supports enforcing camping bans and clearing encampments quickly but humanely, cutting the red tape that drives up housing costs, and prioritizing cost-effective housing that has community support rather than oversized projects imposed without local input. As his campaign puts it, “compassion must come with consequences.”

Investing in youth. He wants to scale up early-intervention programs that give at-risk young people housing, education and mentorship before they fall through the cracks, and to work with schools, nonprofits and families to build programs that last.

On housing, Gaspar has pointed out that the district is already doing its part through major development in Warner Center, while he remains cautious about forcing more density into single-family neighborhoods. It’s a balanced position: yes to growth where it makes sense, and respect for the neighborhoods residents chose to live in.

Moderate, independent and hard to pigeonhole

Gaspar describes himself as the most moderate candidate in the race and “a Democrat through and through.” He opposes ICE raids and speaks warmly about immigrant families working hard to build better lives. At the same time, he’s a skeptic of rent control and a strong backer of police funding. That mix doesn’t fit neatly into either camp in L.A. politics, which is precisely the point. The West Valley has historically elected centrist representatives, Democrats and Republicans alike, who put neighborhood results ahead of ideology.

His coalition reflects that independence. Consider who is backing him:

• Bob Blumenfield, the district’s outgoing councilmember, who has held the seat for 12 years
• C.R. Celona, the third-place finisher in the June primary
• Laura Chick, former 3rd District councilmember and former L.A. City Controller
• L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, who called Gaspar “the real deal”
• Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, Congresswoman Luz Rivas, and City Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Tim McOsker
• Civic leader Rick Caruso
• The LAPD’s rank-and-file union, IBEW Locals 18 and 40, the Sprinkler Fitters, the Painters and Allied Trades, and other building-trades unions
• BizFed and the Valley Industry & Commerce Association
• The Avance Democratic Club, Blue Wave Democratic Club and Democratic Municipal Officials

When the person who has represented this district for over a decade, the candidate who finished third, labor unions, business groups, police officers and Democratic clubs all land in the same place, voters should take notice.

Answering the “experience” question

Gaspar’s opponent, Barri Worth Girvan, is a longtime government staffer who most recently worked for County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and her campaign argues that years inside government make her better prepared.

It’s a fair argument to make, but it cuts both ways. Knowing how City Hall works today is valuable only if City Hall is working. By most residents’ measure, it isn’t. The frustration voters feel about slow services, stubborn encampments and a Valley that gets overlooked is not a problem that more of the same experience is likely to solve. What the council lacks isn’t another insider. It’s someone who has built something from scratch, managed people and budgets, and been accountable to customers who could walk away.

The bottom line

In the June primary, Gaspar finished first with about 46 percent of the vote and more than 22,000 ballots. Since then, the third-place candidate has joined him, and his coalition has only grown.

Tim Gaspar grew up here, built a business here and is raising his family here. He has a practical plan for safer streets, faster permits, real accountability on homelessness and better opportunities for young people. And he has the independence to push back on City Hall’s status quo instead of becoming part of it.

The West Valley deserves a councilmember who treats it as a priority, not an afterthought. On November 3, vote Tim Gaspar for Los Angeles City Council, District 3.

Learn more about the candidate at timgaspar.com. To check your council district or find your voting location, visit lavote.gov.