Beverly Hills To Get First Iranian-Born Mayor

A Jewish businessman was on his way to becoming the first Iranian-born mayor of Beverly Hills.

Vote counting completed from a March 6 election showed that Jimmy Delshad, who emigrated from Iran to the United States when he was 19 and first won a seat on the council in 2003, had won re-election by less than 200 votes.

As the council's most senior member he was expected to be installed as mayor by his colleagues later this month, in keeping with tradition in Beverly Hills, an affluent city that is home to many movie and TV stars.

The Washington, D.C.-based Iranian-American Political Action Committee said Delshad joined a handful of Iranian-Americans elected to high office in U.S. local government and the judicial system.

About a quarter of the 35,000 residents of Beverly Hills are Iranian -- part of a wider group in Los Angeles that is home to the world's largest Iranian expatriate community.

Known as "Tehrangeles," the estimated 500,000 Iranian community has about a dozen TV and radio stations and an influential network of newspapers and magazines.

Delshad, 66, campaigned in part on his heritage, saying that he wanted to become the city's first Iranian mayor. But a decision by Beverly Hills officials to print the city election ballot in Farsi proved controversial and prompted some 300 protest calls by angry citizens.

Delshad was born in Shiraz, Iran, and moved to the United States 48 years ago to attend college in Minnesota and California. He later started a business in the field of computer storage technology and became a U.S. citizen in 1974.

Delshad billed himself as an independent voice and pledged to make Beverly Hills "the safest and smartest city in America" with smart traffic lights