Yes on Sharona Nazarian

If our City Council consisted of the following individuals, in alphabetical order--

Craig Corman, Sharona Nazarian, Rebecca Pynoos, Ariel Rofeim, and Mary Wells—we would have a pretty decent City Council and a good shot at improving our city.

We already recommended that residents vote for Rebecca Pynoos and Ariel Rofeim, and we are now recommending that residents cast their third vote for Sharona Nazarian. It does not appear that she actually needs our endorsement, but she is an excellent candidate and she deserves it.

In the beginning, some of us did not believe Sharona would be a good council member. We felt that she was giving people false compliments, she seemed to be fudging on her education and/or degree, and she would not share her views or disclose her intention to vote in favor of the Cheval Blanc project. She would only state, “I want to be your voice,” a nebulous claim we did not find to be meaningful.

After she was elected, the council majority at the time, Bosse, Gold, and Friedman, did not seem to really accept her. She responded by not rocking the boat and she referred to herself as a junior council member. Maybe that was a practical solution because things were going to go their way anyway, but we thought she should have spoken up when she disagreed.

Then the council changed and Sharona began to come into her own. We noticed that unlike other council members, she seemed to recognize and respect residents’ right to decide whether they wanted the overly large Cheval Blanc project, even if she didn’t agree. Unlike other council members, she was not retaliatory.

When she became the mayor, she demonstrated that she was an excellent speaker and ran meetings very well, making sure residents felt heard and responding to residents’ concerns. She also displayed a gift for making statements which denoted excellent values, and it became clear that she is very bright.

She speaks several languages. Although English is not her first, she speaks English perfectly without any accent, which is also very impressive.

When the council was considering the One Beverly Hills bond issue, and we brought up deficiencies in the city contracts, Sharona specifically directed our City Attorney to review all of our concerns prior to the council meeting, in order to make sure the city contracts properly protected the city. Our City Attorney pretended that the city’s contracts were fine, to maintain confidence in the city, but the contracts had not yet been signed and we assume that they were corrected and improved.

When the 26 story Burton Way builder’s remedy project came before the council on appeal, which project council members felt compelled to approve, to avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and attorney’s fees, Sharona cajoled the developer into refunding to residents the $20K they spent to oppose the project.

Sharona finished her year as mayor with a budget surplus and with crime decreased by as much as 20%.

But as we have mentioned before, no person or city council member or council candidate is perfect and we are concerned that should an unnecessarily large glitzy development project come up, she will favor it. Also, some believe that she enjoys the limelight a little too much, and they are concerned over whether that costs the city additional taxpayer money.

Some are concerned that Sharona strongly supports the city having an October 7 memorial which will require the expenditure of $500K of taxpayers’ money, even though residents have not voted for it. There are many differing views on this issue, and many residents are not even feeling comfortable to state their views.

Some residents feel that no taxpayers’ funds should be spent. Some feel that the memorial will be too expensive. Some residents do not favor starting the project unless and until all donations are collected. Some feel that such a memorial represents an improper integration of religion with government. Others do not want to have a memorial which brings to mind horrific events.

There are also residents who feel strongly about the importance of having such a memorial. However, we do not believe that $500K of taxpayer funds should be spent for such a memorial, absent at the very least, a survey of residents’ sentiments.

In any event, all things considered, Sharona has many good qualities. She has put out a great deal of effort and has done a very good job with what she has had to work with. She has clearly demonstrated that she really cares and she deserves to be re-elected. And truth be told, she would very likely be re-elected, with or without our recommendation.

So vote for Sharona Nazarian, the seventh name on page 1 of your ballot.

(May 24, 2026)