By Stephen Witt, Los Angeles County Politics
Businessman Tim Gaspar came into the final two weeks of the Los Angeles City Council District 3 primary with everything a frontrunner could want: the most money, a huge independent expenditure investment, the biggest endorsements, and a clear strategic mission — hit 50 percent on June 2 and knock out the race before it ever gets to November.
What he got instead was a forum meltdown, an illegal-recording allegation, a mainstream Democratic candidate who says she feared for her physical safety, and a primary race that is getting down and dirty.
The latest brouhaha came at last week’s LAPD West Valley Community Police Advisory Board public safety forum in Van Nuys, in which Gaspar rebutted Barri Worth Girvan‘s closing statement, and then a Gaspar supporter shouted her down, forcing Girvan’s staff to rush her out of the event.
“When people started erupting and guys started pointing and screaming and getting out of hand, it became clear there was no sense of order in that room,” Girvan recalled. “When a couple of my staff came up to me and said, ‘We’re getting you out of here, it’s not safe’ — then it became clear to me that it really was.”
She added: “I don’t want to over-dramatize this, but in my mind, as I rethought it afterward, I thought about January 6 — how people got so angry that they don’t listen, they stand up and shout you down. I think about the political violence aspect of it. I think about how you conduct yourself in these moments, and I think that matters.”
The forum meltdown occurred as the candidates — Gaspar, Girvan and C.R. Celona — moved away from core district issues and into an allegation that Gaspar secretly recorded a conversation with Girvan and then utilized the recording to discredit her on social media.
The recording dispute centered on Gaspar’s $1,500 contribution to the John Lee Legal Defense Committee. Lee, a sitting Los Angeles City Councilmember, had endorsed Gaspar around the same time. On December 17, 2025, the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission fined Lee $138,124 for accepting developer-funded travel to Las Vegas and obstructing the commission’s investigation.
Gaspar continued to publicly defend Lee and questioned whether the right people sit on the Ethics Commission. But Girvan pointed out that at an April 27 debate at Magnolia Science Academy, Gaspar was asked about ethics in government and answered that government officials facing ethics violations should pay the fines out of their own pocket.
Five days later, at a OneGeneration forum in Reseda, Gaspar approached Girvan after the debate had ended and the microphones were off. He questioned her about her campaign messaging and asked whether she had previously sought Lee’s endorsement. She had — before the Ethics Commission’s action became public — and said so. What she did not know was that she was being recorded.
A video of the exchange surfaced the next day in Crimebusters of West Hills and Woodland Hills, a private Facebook group with nearly 16,000 members, framed with the caption: “I confronted Barri in person over this claim.”
Gaspar defended the recording in a statement to the Daily News.
“This past week, Barri and I participated in our eighth debate that was open to the public. Like every single debate, it was audio and video recorded, in a room open to the public with a clearly visible sign indicating attendees may be recorded or photographed,” he told the newspaper.
“Immediately after the debate ended, while still at the table and on stage, in front of multiple attendees and the debate hosts, I turned to Barri and asked her why she continued to post and say intentionally misleading and untruthful information about me. That one-minute conversation happened to be captured by the audio and video.”
His campaign described the posting of the clip as “an unfortunate error by a volunteer” that was immediately corrected.
Girvan filed a complaint with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, alleging a violation of California’s two-party consent law, and told LACP she wasn’t buying Gaspar’s argument.
“The foundation of public service is built on honesty and trust, and that erodes trust,” she said. “His video opens with ‘I confronted Barri.’ This was no mistake. If somebody is willing to break a law as a candidate — what regard do they have for it as a public official?”
Celona, a newcomer to politics as a candidate, said regardless of politics, nobody should be secretly recorded during what was clearly intended to be a private conversation, and that Girvan had every right to speak up about it.
“Voters are tired of this kind of politics,” said Celona. “This race should be about lowering costs, fixing city services, public safety and bringing jobs back — not personal attacks, secret recordings or social media smear campaigns. The district deserves better.”
The district includes Canoga Park, Reseda, Tarzana, Winnetka, and Woodland Hills-Warner Center. The CD3 primary is Tuesday, June 2, 2026. Mail-in ballots were delivered to mailboxes on or after May 4. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the primary vote, the top two finishers will advance to the November 3 general election.
