Feature > Interview > MAYOR OF BEVERLY HILLS: JIMMY DELSHAD BY SHABNAM REZAEI
With Darius Kadivar from Paris
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With four years on City Council, one year as Mayor of Beverly Hills, and a few more years of political ambitions ahead, Jimmy Delshad is indeed a popular name in California and around the world these days. I met him on a rainy day in his Beverly Hills office, where we joked about his stipple drawing on the front cover of the Wall Street Journal. You know you have arrived when the Journal stipples you. A soft-spoken, kind and determined gentleman, Jimmy Delshad is the epitome of all things great, Iranian, American, or both. Here is my conversation with him:
Shabnam Rezaei: What does a day in the life of the Mayor of Beverly Hills look like?
Jimmy Delshad: Lots of juggling and dealing with the public. Lot of unplanned things come up and also lots of meetings as the head of the city. The first few weeks, it felt like “drinking from a fire hose”. I have meetings with developers, then the chamber of commerce, or someone wanting to ban smoking in Beverly Hills.
SR: Can you smoke right now in Beverly Hills?
JD: You can but this is about smoking in the outside portion of the restaurants for patio dining. I have to hear all input and one of the jobs is to stay unbiased until you have heard all evidence. As Mayor and councilmen, we wear three hats. One is a legislator, where we legislate laws ordinances, what is allowed and not allowed. Another hat is like a judge, we have to judge different projects and we have to hear all evidence and we are not allowed to talk to each other. Finally the role of an executive branch of the government where we employ people to implement the laws for the security and safety of the people. So three separate hats. I reach out to people and now that I am a little bit of a celebrity, I get about 50 emails a day from Iranians all over the world, especially Iran, in Fingilish (Farsi written in English alphabet or a mixture of Farsi and English) where they are so proud of me – they say “you brought us such good news. After 30 years we are finally looking up and I wish you were here to run for our city. We want your intelligence and know-how in Iran.”
SR: What happened with the Ballots of Beverly Hills being in Persian and all the negative coverage that was the media like in USA Today?
JD: Four years ago when I ran for city council, I won that seat as the first Iranian-American to do so in Beverly Hills ever. I found out it was very difficult for our older generation to vote. They were not used to it; they did not want to register. We asked a commission on Human relations to have a separate ballot in Farsi so that we could service this group of the community. And we did that and it worked fine. The last year, we have changed our clerk. City clerk is an independent office in city government that handles elections. He had gone to some election seminars and had learned in order to outreach if you have more than 5% in a community, you have to put everything on the same ballot. So he created a ballot that had almost more Persian than English, and the Persian lettering was Arabic, it was not even Persian. He thought it was Persian. He scared the heck out of people and people panicked because they thought Iran is taking over, suddenly, in America, and in Beverly Hills. At that time, there were 3 Iranian-Americans running for council – this is good because it gets more Persians involved but it was also bad because it split the vote and all three could have lost and we would have no representation. The other side voted against me in droves. One of them said, 'if you get into office, I am afraid you will change all our signs to Farsi.' That is the fear they had. So the people who are inherently prejudiced, fan the flame and created a big story for the papers.
SR: What percentage of Beverly Hills is Iranian?
JD: There is no way to figure it out except by last names. Persians are considered to be white and so it’s hard to say. I would put it at 25% of the residents in Beverly Hills, and there are about 40,000 residents in Beverly Hills.
SR: How have you promoted Iranian culture, seeing that you are in the public view?
JD: I decided years ago when I ran for any office that I had a role. I wanted to be the bridge. I became a bridge between my community and the European community because my wife’s family was from Russi
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