Iranian's in politics

[mike435]

In this section lets create a collection of Iranians who are active and are participant in politics outside of Iran.

It would be nice to know how much we are participating outside of Iran were many of the diaspora left becuase they felt they had no opportunity of participation if they wanted to.

[mike435]

City Council Race
Shows Changed Face Please Vote Today
Of Beverly Hills Tuesday March 6th!

Iranian-Born Mr. Delshad
Vies for Mayor's Job;
Printing Ballots in Farsi
By PETER SANDERS
March 5, 2007; Page A1

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- When voters here go to the polls tomorrow, Jimmy Delshad is a favorite to be re-elected to the City Council. Under the city's system, he would also become mayor -- the first Iranian-born mayor of this glitzy city, known around the world more for its palm trees and movie stars than its sizable Jewish Iranian-American population.
At a time when tension between the U.S. and Iranian governments is on the rise, Mr. Delshad, a 66-year-old Jewish immigrant, is on the brink of becoming one of the highest-ranking Iranian-American elected officials in the U.S. So what are some of the political issues he feels most passionate about? Traffic-light timing, reducing sprinkler-water use at local parks and even beautifying the city's alleys.
"I want to make Beverly Hills one of the safest cities in the nation, in order to protect our residents and visitors," Mr. Delshad said in a recent interview. "Oh, and free wireless too."
Roughly 8,000 of the approximately 35,000 residents of Beverly Hills are of Iranian descent -- an influx that began in earnest nearly 30 years ago after the fall of the shah of Iran and has fundamentally changed one of America's most iconic cities. The sensitivity of the situation was underscored recently when the city, for the first time, printed its entire ballot in English and Farsi -- a move that prompted an outpouring of complaints, including a number from Iranian-Americans. (See a sample ballot.1)
See Beverly Hills' new English-Farsi ballot2.

Six candidates in tomorrow's election will be vying for two seats on the Beverly Hills City Council. Three are Persian. Mr. Delshad -- who changed his first name to Jimmy from Jamshid when he became a U.S. citizen -- first won election to the City Council in 2003. If re-elected, he would become mayor; council members rotate the job each year, based on seniority.
While Mr. Delshad effectively mobilized the Persian community to vote in larger numbers than ever before during his 2003 campaign, he has said this race should be tougher. As an incumbent, he has received the endorsement of both of the city's local newspapers. However, in a small city like Beverly Hills, which traditionally sees a low voter turnout, results can be unexpected.
A former computer entrepreneur, Mr. Delshad says he's not fazed by seeking a high-profile role at a time when the U.S. and Iran are facing off on the world stage. "It doesn't keep me up at night," he says. "This is the bed I made and I'm going to sleep in it." A registered Democrat, Mr. Delshad declined to comment on the global issues surrounding Iran.
He prefers to focus on challenges facing other small-town mayors, like traffic congestion and development. But because Beverly Hills is so prominent, he's also keenly interested in securing the city against possible terrorist strikes. He wants to increase video surveillance in public spaces and continue to add license-plate scanners to police vehicles.
At times, he has worried for his own safety. In 2003, during his first City Council campaign, Mr. Delshad hired three bodyguards after he received written death threats in his native Farsi language. He also carried a panic button that could summon local police. He says he never knew who was behind the threats or why he received them, but he kept the bodyguards for a few months even after he was elected.
While there have been other Iranian-born candidates for public office, Mr. Delshad's election would be a watershed, says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, in Washington. "This is a man with long ties in the community who has risen through the process," Dr. Parsi says. Mr. Delshad has lived in the U.S. nearly 50 years, the last 18 in Beverly Hills.
The demographics of today's Beverly Hills are a far cry from days past. Early residents included Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford who built their "Pickfair" mansion here in 1919; Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson and Buster Keaton also called the city home. Its first honorary mayor was humorist Will Rogers.

end part 1

[mike435]

start part 2

Hollywood stars and executive moguls still live here today. But beginning with the Islamic Revolution in 1979, thousands of Iranians -- most of them Jewish -- immigrated to the city and over the next few years sent for relatives. Once here, the immigrants retained strong family bonds and connections, often keeping them from integrating into the larger community, Mr. Delshad and others say.
Disputes have surfaced in zoning battles over so-called "Persian Palaces," large homes decorated in a sometimes gaudy style that some said clashed with the surroundings. The city found compromises, some brokered by Mr. Delshad. In 2004, the city passed an ordinance that greatly restricted the proliferation of such structures, by offering specific design choices and a review board for new homes.
The split in the community was nowhere more evident than at Sinai Temple, a 101-year-old conservative Jewish congregation a few blocks west of city limits. Today, Persian members account for nearly half of its 1,900 families, says its rabbi, David Wolpe. The influx of Persian families caused tensions and some longtime congregants left the temple. Everyone else self-segregated, sitting on opposite sides of the aisle, he says.
In 1999, Mr. Delshad was elected president of the temple, which he says may be the first time an Iranian-American has led a temple founded and previously run by European Jews. "Jimmy's presidency here was a way of saying that you can have a Persian president of an American synagogue and the sky doesn't fall," says Mr. Wolpe.
Today, both he and Mr. Delshad say, assimilation of the cultures has reduced the tensions at the temple and in Beverly Hills. "The fact that Persians have been in the community for many years now and have issues they're concerned with -- things like their kids and zoning issues -- requires them to get more involved in things that affect their lives," Mr. Wolpe adds.
Mr. Delshad, born in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, came to the U.S. in 1958, following his brother, then a college student, to Mankato, Minn. Their father, a jeweler and goldsmith in Iran, would later join his sons in the U.S.
Mr. Delshad took university-extension courses and worked as a janitor to make ends meet. He and two brothers eventually formed the "Delshad Trio" playing the santur, a Persian string instrument. They moved to Los Angeles's growing Iranian community, playing music as they put themselves through college.
After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering, Mr. Delshad joined a fledgling computer firm. For about two decades, he ran his own computer-hardware company, which he sold in 1999, when he became president of the temple. Married 38 years, he is the father of two grown children.
The recent dustup over the Farsi ballot demonstrated that, despite strides the Iranian community has made, its presence can still be a lightning rod. City Hall has received about 300 complaints since absentee ballots went to voters at the beginning of last month, says Byron Pope, the city's clerk, who decided to translate the ballots into Farsi. (A separate Spanish ballot is available, too.) Mr. Pope says he made the move in consultation with an outside election-services firm and was complying with the federal Voting Rights Act, which says that a jurisdiction that has more than 5% of its voting-age population in "a single language group" should have a ballot available in that language. In the 2005 city election, some information was translated into Farsi, but not the entire ballot, he says.
For Mr. Delshad, the ballot issue was a "blip that most people have gotten over." Traffic, he says, is the true Beverly Hills issue of the day.
Write to Peter Sanders at peter.sanders@wsj.com3
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117306338003926631.html

Hyperlinks in this Article:
(1) http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/bhfarsi-ballot-03032007.pdf
(2) http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/bhfarsi-ballot-03032007.pdf
(3) mailtoeter.sanders@wsj.com

[Rasputin]

Good info about Mr Delshad. Thank you Mike .