Last month, Ara Najarian closed out on more than 30 years of service to Glendale, including 21 years on the City Council.<\/p>\n
During his tenure, Najarian served as Glendale’s mayor five times, making him the longest serving mayor in the city’s history. He also represented Glendale on numerous regional boards and committees, elevating the city’s voice on transportation, infrastructure, and regional policy across Southern California, a news release states.<\/p>\n
When Najarian was first elected to city council in 2005, he didn’t just decide to run as a “one hit wonder.” Rather, his motives were “very progressive” in terms of building, at the time, he said.<\/p>\n
Prior to being elected to council, Najarian was involved with the city as an attorney, and with the judicial areas as a judge pro tem and a mediation officer. Najarian also served on Glendale’s Transportation and Parking Commission, as the chair, and on the Glendale Community College Board of Trustees, which he said was another small step toward running for public office.<\/p>\n
Then came an opening on the City Council, when a councilmember was appointed to be a judge \u2014 Najarian said he didn’t run to unseat anybody, he wanted to be part of the team.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to, from the beginning, make a positive contribution, relying on my background in law and being a husband and a father to kids who grew up here,” he said. “It all sort of built up, and \u2026 it’s weird, because I think many candidates now want to come in, and [want] to be the agent for change.”<\/p>\n
Local officials, Najarian said, have the most difficult job of any politician at other levels because they’re on the front line.<\/p>\n
“We hear those really heartfelt complaints from residents. The criticisms that are directed are right in our face every week,” Najarian said, adding that state legislators, county supervisors, congressmembers, and senators face the upfront critique less because they’re more distant and removed from it all. “We are in the grocery store when someone says that was a stupid thing you did on Tuesday, and so it’s not the easiest of all those positions in the hierarchy of political jobs.”<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the projects or initiatives during his tenure with the city he was most proud of, Najarian said there wasn’t a one that he did not have a hand in. He’s proud of the project management and coordination that went into the establishment of the Glendale Americana, maintaining “top-notch” public safety, the Aquatic Center, the parks that the city has renovated, affordable housing that’s been built, increased revenues and expanded reservoir and electrical supply systems.<\/p>\n
“I’m very proud of Brand Boulevard. It wasn’t always like that. It was kind of dead, it was kind of dirty, but now\u2026 it is a city avenue that I would compare to any other place in the country in terms of amenities, safety, cleanliness, pedestrian amenities as well,” he said.<\/p>\n
Najarian added that he’s worked hard to make an impact on bringing ethics to Glendale’s local government by helping ensure councilmembers had contribution limits. He hopes Glendale has removed itself from some of the scandals other cities experience by imposing tough ethics and conflict of interest laws.<\/p>\n
“I hope that’s brought us to perhaps a level of\u2026 self-policing that makes us a better government, knowing that\u2026 there isn’t rampant fraud, corruption, backdoor dealing, quid pro quo,” he said.<\/p>\n
Demographically, Najarian said Glendale continues to be a diverse community. However, he said the city has become a lot more diverse in terms of politics.<\/p>\n
“We used to be a very conservative city. We are not that anymore,” Najarian said, adding that he attributes this change to people from the entertainment industry moving to Glendale for its parks, safety and diversity of culture. “They moved in and brought a different way of thinking than we had previously had.”<\/p>\n
In other changes, Najarian, who served as a second vice chair for the Metro Board of Directors, said in terms of transportation infrastructure, Metro is on the verge of opening up Glendale to transit connections through the North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit Project, which he championed.<\/p>\n
“We shouldn’t be afraid of that connectivity, it’s\u2026 an important part of our history, that we should reinstitute and make life better for our residents,” Najarian said.<\/p>\n
Over the past decade, Najarian said, he’s noticed a “very unwelcome intrusion into local decision making by the state legislators,” which has disturbed not only him, he says, but people throughout the state, on all sides of the political spectrum.<\/p>\n
“They’re making their own rules and imposing it on us without funding those changes that are required, whether it is environmental sustainability, whether it’s transportation, housing, development standards” he said. “All these things were imposed on our city and others, and it has left some of us really with a bitter feeling towards the state.”<\/p>\n
Najarian’s career with the city has not been short of controversy.<\/p>\n
A 2023 interview he did with California Insider, where Najarian made multiple allegations regarding the Glendale Unified School District’s sexual education curriculum, upset many community members.<\/p>\n
Following that, during the 2024 mayoral selection process, Najarian was considered next in line for the top job, as the councilmember with the longest uninterrupted service on council. However, when it came to vote, Councilmember Dan Brotman invoked the city’s “best interest” clause, citing comments Najarian made during the interview. Then-Councilmember Elen Asatryan was chosen instead.<\/p>\n
Najarian responded to his loss of the mayoral seat to Asatryan with a lawsuit against the city in July 2024, in which he claimed the council was biased in their decision to not reelect him and that the mayoral selection process violated his constitutional rights. A judge ultimately ruled in favor of the city, saying the council\u2019s decision was lawful and within its discretion.<\/p>\n
Najarian feels the judge was wrong in his decision, and that it hinged on the fact that being a mayor is the same as being a city councilmember.<\/p>\n
In terms of how the lawsuit impacted council dynamics, Najarian said it was “frosty” for six to nine months, and he was very resentful toward his colleagues for casting him in the light as not being in the best interests of the city.<\/p>\n
“I would have preferred if they said, ‘he doesn’t know how to wear a tie,’ but to say I’m not in the best interest, to suggest that your cognitive abilities aren’t moral, ethical, were somehow degraded or insufficient,'” he said, was what really bothered him. “If they could do this to a sitting councilmember on the flimsiest of reasons, they could do that to every other person in the city for whatever their particular issue might be at any particular time.”<\/p>\n
He said it took him six to nine months to start to rebuild some of those relationships, while focusing on the issues in front of the city.<\/p>\n
Despite the year of discord, Najarian was reelected as the city’s mayor for his fifth and final time during the 2025 selection process by council colleagues. At the time, he clarified statements made during the 2023 media interview and criticized hateful remarks that had been made against councimembers.<\/p>\n
During his final days on the City Council, Najarian said it was a bit easier for everyone to get along, despite ideological differences on issues such as bike lanes and the BRT.<\/p>\n
However, they were on the same page with many issues including housing and were critical of the state government for imposing mandates on the city, he said.<\/p>\n
“I think not appealing the court’s ruling sent a message that I want to put that behind, and that we have\u2026 work to do on important issues that face us every week,” he said.<\/p>\n
Other issues that came before the council during Najarian’s tenure include the Great Recession, where they had to readapt the city’s budget and projections for revenues, making a lot of cuts. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit it was “unknown territory.” Now the city is facing an economic crisis, he said.<\/p>\n
Regarding Najarian’s exit, he’s concerned the City Council won’t be as balanced in his absence, and that it will become more progressive with the new slate of councilmembers who he said campaigned together and will be “lock step with each other.”<\/p>\n
However, he still believes the majority of Glendale is moderate and non-progressive.<\/p>\n
“It’s unfortunate there’s only 20% of the City Council now representing them. The other four, 80% are representing the progressive side,” Najarian said. “My hope is that Glendale maintains balanced viewpoints on the City Council representative of the residents.”<\/p>\n
As for his future outside of the Glendale City Council, Najarian said he will remain on the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, but will step off the Metro board and might be taking an alternate position on the Metrolink board.<\/p>\n
“Despite being not in the best interests of the city of Glendale, these boards really want me to come back and play some sort of role, even if it’s an alternate or a non-voting position. I’m going to be seeking some either state level or federal level positions, and I might even try to run again for county supervisor,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Ara Najarian closed out on more than 30 years of service to Glendale, including 21 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-404366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}