Ara Najarian - Still Unfit to Be Mayor

NAJARIAN'S LOSING STREAK CONTINUES

Ara Najarian has a well-documented history of cronyism, opposition to community improvement measures, and amplification of bigotry based misinformation that has caused harm to our public schools and endangered vulnerable populations within our city.

At Tuesday's city council meeting it's expected that Ara Najarian will attempt to change city rules around the mayorship so that he can assume the role and still be eligible to run again in 2026. Currently, city law prohibits a councilmember from holding the title of 'mayor' in the year they are up for re-election.

As a reminder, Ara Najarian has held the position of mayor 4 times.

In 2024 he sued the city because he felt entitled to a 5th term despite the fact that a majority of councilmembers determined, based on Najarian's public embrace of hateful anti-LGBTQ+ positions and decision to spread disinformation about Glendale public schools, that Elen Asatryan was better suited to the ceremonial role of Glendale mayor.

Unwilling to accept that democratic process, Najarian employed his son to launch a tantrum in the form of a legal complaint demanding to be made mayor. The court rejected his complaint and multiple appeals, ruling with the rejection that Najarian must pay the legal fees accrued by the city.

In a histrionic filing, Najarian smeared the city's legal counsel (a person Najarian helped hire), claiming their work was not worth the amount billed, implying he could have lawyered better and faster, and bargaining to pay less in fees than ordered by the court.

One can't help but wonder how much Ara paid his son to be his legal representative and how much he would have demanded the city reimburse had his suit been successful...Regardless, the court ruled in favor of the City of Glendale and Najarian is now on the hook for nearly $10k in taxpayer-funded legal fees for his stunt. (Publicly available records suggest that his meltdown's total costs are MUCH higher, as much as $65,000).

ARA APPEARS TO FORWARD CONSTITUENT EMAIL TO HIS UNELECTED SISTER.

Expensive and emotional ego-driven tantrums aside, new information has come to light that makes even clearer Ara Najarian's close ties and compromised relationships with groups linked to attacks on our public schools and harassment of teachers, students, and other community members.

This blog was contacted with public records indicating that Ara Najarian forwarded a public comment to his sister, Maro Najarian Yacoubian, a charter school advocate believed to be linked to multiple social media accounts which disseminate misinformation and harassment of LGBTQ+ individuals.

On January 21, 2025 many Glendale residents submitted written public comment to city council members on plans to develop the Verdugo Wash into a public space with walking and biking trails. The project has been an ongoing target of MAGA activists who appear to have made safe streets and public parks a proxy issue for everything they consider "woke" and therefore "evil."

One comment was submitted via an anonymous email address (noted within the message as a protective measure based on past experience with violent harassers):

Soon after sending, the owner of the anonymous email account reports being sent a series of X-rated illustrations from an account labeled "GUSD Parents." The owner of the anonymous email account states that the account had only been used to email city council members, which raised questions about how or why another anonymous account would have access to it.

A public records request into Ara Najarian's communications on that date reveal that within an hour of receiving the public comment via email, he forwarded the comment with email address included to his sister Maro Najarian Yacoubian.

To be sure Maro received this message from a constituent, Ara Najarian forwarded the email from both his official city address and personal email.

It is unclear why anyone would email adult content to the original anonymous account.

Whatever the reason, it is disturbing that despite taking protective efforts, attempts to communicate with this city council, harassment and intimidation immediately followed. The network of extremists who use threats, intimidation and bigotry to attempt to prevent progress and inclusion in the city of Glendale is well-documented on this site and elsewhere. These new public records suggest that Ara Najarian is closely tied to them and willing to use them to advance his personal obsession with power.

TLDR; Ara Najarian is still unfit to be mayor or to hold any public office.