By Julie BUTCHER

The Tuesday night meeting of the Glendale City Council was almost entirely dedicated to the process of selecting a new mayor and then hearing detailed plans and visions from both the outgoing mayor, Zareh Sinanyan, and the newly selected mayor, Ara Najarian.

According to the City, “Glendale has a council-manager form of government. Five councilmembers are elected at large to serve four-year terms. Elections take place on the first Tuesday in April during odd numbered years. Each year Council selects one member to serve as mayor. The mayor presides at Council meetings and has ceremonial responsibilities, in addition to his or her other Council duties.”

Najarian has been the city’s mayor before, first in 2007, following his election to the council in 2005, and then again in 2010 and in 2015.

A representative from the office of State Senator Anthony Portantino presented a plaque to Sinanyan in recognition of his work as mayor, and then Sinanyan summed up the year’s work and accomplishments.

“In April of last year, I promulgated an agenda,” said Sinanyan as he ticked through a long list: expanding low income and workforce housing; improving the Glendale economy, such as through his “tech initiative,” and strengthening the downtown as a major business area; bringing modern transit to Glendale; completing the Artsakh Paseo project; cooperating with the Glendale school district to best utilize its open green space; reinvigorating the Council in Your Neighborhood program; looking toward maximum sustainability in the repowering of the Grayson plant; transforming a library into a children’s library; and initiating an annual non-profit summit.

Sinanyan detailed steps the City has taken to begin to address the urgent need for affordable housing, including attempts to leverage federal, state and local funds, “including our own tax revenue. Measure S gives us a serious tool to take active steps; it was a responsible step we took unanimously,” he recalled. “Raising taxes is a bad thing, but we had the courage to tell the truth” and now instead of local tax revenues funding measures outside of the City, we “keep all the money in Glendale.”

“The economy is doing well – rents and home values are up,” he continued, highlighting the safety and cleanliness of the City.

Artsakh Paseo is a project located on two blocks of Maryland Avenue, renamed last year for a geographic part of the Republic of Armenia. According to Sinanyan, it is the first Armenian place name in the City of Glendale – a city where nearly 40% of its population is of Armenian heritage.

“That was a wonderful event, but more so we’re on our way to having something very wonderful on Artsakh Paseo, on those two blocks,” he said.

Completing his list of work accomplished in the last year, Sinanyan recognized and thanked the city’s police department (he shared an anecdote highlighting the efficacy of the department’s technology when a burglar was caught based on DNA evidence left on the stem of a strawberry eaten during the crime), the Fire Department, and the entire city staff.

“Our residents are used to the highest standards in this city. Our pavement is perfect, our roads are well-maintained. When you leave Glendale, you know that you’ve left Glendale, that you’re in a different city, just from the quality of the asphalt, from the pavement,” he said. “That’s something to be proud of and that’s what we intend to continue to do.”

New Mayor Ara Najarian thanked his extended family and many friends in attendance and his colleagues on the council for selecting him and summed up his goals and plans as the City’s newest mayor.

Recalling being elected to the Council in 2005, when Glendale was “seen as sleepy,” and as mayor in 2007, he compared his recollections with the Glendale of today, “open 18 hours a day,” downtown thriving.

As to the process of selecting the mayor each year, Najarian said, that there is not a set rotation for the position, but we “try to be fair.”

Though he acknowledged the job is largely ceremonial, he said, the responsibilities include quelling uprisings in the council chambers and to be the face and voice of the City “around the globe.”

Mayor Najarian laid out his priorities.

“We face serious issues ahead in the next 12 months. Securing the energy future of our residents is the biggest one we face, and I appreciate the environmental, climate change, and air quality issues entwined in this issue. We must keep in mind, however, that we don’t have the luxury of scale, the luxury of time, or the luxury of transmission opportunities – electrical transmission – that a city like Los Angeles has. They are not us and we are not them. And, in the end, let’s not fool ourselves; LA is out for LA’s interests, each and every time, and it will steamroll Glendale any chance it gets. I will not let the City fall into a position where we and our residents are vulnerable to any other city, large or small, near or far.”

“I will be proposing a series of election reform measures,” he went on. “I simply can’t erase what I saw last election. I want to make sure every voter is able to choose and select the candidate or candidates of their choosing without undue influence by campaign workers who enter their home. In South Carolina, an entire congressional election was thrown out because of ballot harvesting. Now our rules in California may be somewhat different, but when it comes to budget time, I will ask my colleagues to increase the budget of the city clerk for education and for the enforcement of election laws.”

Lobbying rules and ethics reform are also on the new mayor’s to-do list. He said he wants to implement a lobbyist registration where the city attorney takes information from those wanting to meet with members of the council.

“They must disclose their relationships, how much they’re being paid,” Najarian detailed his expectations, adding that it would provide transparency for the public, for councilmembers and for city staff.

Campaign finance changes are also points on Najarian’s to-do list.

“Years ago, I brought forward campaign contribution limits,” he said. “At that time, someone could write a check for $50,000 and give it to a candidate.”

Enhancing added restrictions, Najarian said, would add greater “transparency and trust in our governmental process.”

The mayor shared plans to bring leaders from Korea and Japan together to resolve an old dispute as well as plans to revitalize the City’s “sister city” program with an upcoming trip to the Mexican state of Jalisco.

“We have a great year for transportation ahead of us and, as a member of the Metro board, I’ll push for Glendale’s interests as I have for the last decade,” he said. “As the [former] mayor mentioned, we have a BRT, a bus rapid transit route, that is being refined right now, and it will connect Glendale to the rail system of Metro.”

Locally, he added, “I look forward to finally completing the Beeline maintenance facility. That’s an important part of our local transportation system where our Beeline buses are serviced and fueled.” Plans also include transitioning city vehicles to electricity and alternative fuels.

Najarian is the also the vice-chair of the six-county Metrolink board and, as such, he referenced transit plans to add rail to the area around Burbank Airport as well as plans focused on the “first mile and the last mile” of trips and commutes. Some cities offer subsidized taxi rides between their rail stations and downtown, for example.

A streetcar feasibility study is also being contemplated to “bring back a piece of Glendale history.” But funding has always been an obstacle. Now, Najarian reported, he has heard from potential foreign investors who are interested in “building, operating, and maintaining a streetcar line through Glendale. This a game changer – we’ve always thought we’d have to wait for Metro funding.”

Additional goals are to ensure the streets stay pristine, that potholes are filled quickly, that the digging up on Brand Boulevard wraps up quickly and that the street is returned to its “pristine smooth” condition.

With a nod to Councilmember Paula Devine, Najarian raised possible action on gas-powered leaf blowers.

“Our housing affordability crisis has not been solved, but our new inclusionary housing ordinance certainly helps,” he said. “I don’t think the Right to Lease ordinance really took us where we need to go.”

Instead, he plans to create a subsidy program for the most needy of the city’s residents.”

Najarian listed the groups and entities with which he hopes the City Council can meet, suggesting joint sessions with the Glendale Unified School District (GUSD), specifically to discuss potential plans for swimming pools, and with the Glendale Community College District (GCCD) to rekindle relations.

“The Crescenta Valley Town Council serves as an advisory board to Supervisor Kathryn Barger and we always have issues concerning our adjacent communities, roadway signs and traffic issues and development,” said Najarian, sharing his hopes for a joint meeting with the Town Council.

“It’s too much of us versus them and, if you listen to some of them talk, even those who live in the Glendale part of La Crescenta don’t even consider themselves part of the City. Let’s bring them back in and include our friends in the unincorporated areas and see if we can start working together and discuss some of the issues that are important.”

  Julie BUTCHER