Candidates Robin Rowe, left, and Hamid Omrani are among the field of 10 candidates in the March 5 Beverly Hills City Council election. (photos courtesy of Robin Rowe and Hamid Omrani)

Beverly Hills City Council candidate Robin Rowe, a resident since 2003, stresses that he is the only progressive candidate in the race. Rowe said he has drastically different views than the other nine candidates, and he asks that voters support an alternative to the status quo in City Hall.

Rowe, who serves on a United Nations committee advancing medical technology, has a lengthy background in tech and security. He said he formerly created crisis detection and management technology installed at U.S. military command centers that alerts about potential threats. He was also previously chief technologist and enterprise manager for the engineering firm and defense company SAIC. In Beverly Hills, he previously served on the Technology Committee.

“I guess the main thing that I’m trying to do is give people an alternative. From my perspective, everyone has the same policies, it doesn’t really matter which of the nine other candidates you vote for,” Rowe said. “They all say that they want to continue doing the same thing that the City Council has been doing for the past decade, they just want it to start working somehow now. I’m suggesting that change may be necessary.”

With public safety, Rowe said the city needs more officers on the streets and fewer private security guards.

“Who’s on patrol? Private security who can do nothing but record crime in progress and wait for a real police officer to arrive. Beverly Hills [spends] millions and millions of dollars on private security, so called ambassadors, to report crime after it happens. They don’t deter crime at all,” Rowe said. “I’ll put the Beverly Hills police back on patrol. And I’ll cut Beverly Hills’ wasteful private security budget.”

Rowe said addressing development and increasing affordable housing will remain a difficult task for the city, and meeting state mandated goals required in the housing element will not be feasible without utilizing radical ideas. He does not believe the city can meet housing goals with its mixed-use district along major corridors, because it will be too expensive for developers to build new projects or retrofit existing buildings. He proposes potentially including a lot of housing in a small number of projects.

“I grew up outside Chicago, and in Chicago there’s a beautiful building called Lake Point Tower, considered one of the most beautiful residential high rises in the world. It’s 80 stories tall and has 1,200 units, but the units are actually quite large, so if the units weren’t quite so luxurious, that could be more like 1,500 units,” Rowe said. “The mandate that we have from the state that we’ve put off for 10 years, it was 310 [units] a year, but now 10 years later, we are over 3,000 units short of our housing mandate. If we put up two of those towers, that would give us 3,000 units, and we would meet our mandate. Anything other than that is not practical. We cannot tear down every three story commercial building in Beverly Hills and rebuild it.”

Rowe said he voted for the Cheval Blanc project because, “the city needed the money,” but added that “it was the wrong plan to begin with.” He said he has no ties to hotels or developers and would consider each project on its individual merits.

Rowe has another unique idea for the Metro subway system coming to the city, and would like to see public transportation both under and above ground in Beverly Hills.

“I’m for the Metro. The issue, though, is because the City Council has tried to prevent the Metro from being built, we’re not prepared for it,” Rowe said. “In order to prepare, we need to build a skyway. If you’ve ever been to a ski resort and ridden the gondola, then you know what a skyway is. It’s also called an overhead tramway. These are becoming very popular in cities for short haul public transportation. You don’t want to just dump everybody on Rodeo Drive and say get your Uber. We already have too much traffic. We can have them get off the road. Get on the skyway and you will be at City Hall within a couple of minutes. They can go to the Beverly Hilton, and they can go the other direction to the shops on Robertson.”

Rowe said he is concerned about a trio of lawsuits facing the city, one alleging racial profiling by the Beverly Hills Police Department, another accusing the city of conspiring to block a reproductive care clinic from opening and a third alleging the city didn’t take enough steps before removing trees on Robertson Boulevard. He said he is not surprised by the allegations against the police department and reproductive clinic, given the City Council’s “conservative” stance. He said the tree removals are a much more problematic topic. Rowe said the city should be replacing trees in urban parts of the city with native species, and should also be developing a plan for trees in the hills, where they could present a wildfire danger.

“Trimming trees is very important. But not so much the trees in [the Robertson] area as much as the 80-foot-tall pine trees that we have in Beverly Hills,” Rowe said. “The trees that people are objecting to being trimmed are non-native. As a progressive, I want to have native trees. I understand the thinking of the people that say, ‘well, these are beautiful trees, we shouldn’t cut down something so pretty,’ and I feel for it. But we really need to do something about replacing all these non-native trees that are a fire and environmental hazard.”

Rowe added that he plans to represent all people of Beverly Hills and vowed to bring change to the city.

“What I really want to emphasize is that I’m a progressive candidate,” Rowe said. “If you want change, if you’re not happy with the way the City Council has run things for the past 10 years, I’m the only one to vote for.”

Omrani plans to streamline city government

Beverly Hills architect and home designer Hamid Omrani is running for City Council because he said the current way the city is being managed is not working.

Omrani, a resident of Beverly Hills for more than 40 years, said he is ready to lead and will use his extensive knowledge from working with city departments to streamline processes and improve living conditions. He has never served on city commissions or committees, but served as an economic development advisor to the mayor from 1992-96. He said current city leaders and commission members often lack experience in the fields in which they are making decisions, and added that they are appointed because of personal ties as opposed to their expertise.

“I was not involved in any commission, because I didn’t believe in these commissions,” Omrani said. “The No. 1 problem is city government, problems with city government. All of them work together. All of them are connected. The result is that any commissioner will be elected by City Council only for their relationship.”

Omrani said he supports public safety and the police department, and believes they should be better compensated.

“The police department is doing the right job. Unfortunately, they have a shortage of payroll,” Omrani said. “In all of the United States, we have a shortage of police. So we have to pay more on payroll or benefits so they do not take the leap and go to another city.”

Omrani, who has designed and built more than 200 houses in Beverly Hills, said he will specifically focus on development. As an architect and builder, he said he has experienced the high costs and delays of obtaining approvals and believes the city should cut through red tape to get things done.

“It takes more than one year to issue a building permit, and the payment is too much. And on the other hand, they could set it up to issue that in one month or two months,” he added.

Omrani also cited the Metro subway system as an important consideration for the city, and said it takes someone with expertise in building to understand how it will impact other parts of the city.

“If the city can handle it in the right way, it is positive. If they can’t manage it, it is negative. For example, they need many, many parking spaces next to the Metro, next to the stations,” Omrani said, adding that a pick-up and drop-off area for ride-hailing drivers is a must near the subway stations. “The best solution is that they go through underground parking, right underground below Cañon. They can excavate and build below the street.”

Omrani also said he is concerned about the way the city spends money and plans to closely look at expenditures to identify waste.

“When you are talking about 30,000 residents, and [the city] budget is over half a billion dollars, it is a joke,” Omrani said. “How is it possible? [We] can run the city with half of this amount. They are spending too much.”

Omrani said he is also focused on improving education and hopes to involve more young people in city government. He plans to continue meeting people during his campaign and hopes they believe in him and support his vision for the city.

“Everyone knows Beverly Hills is the best,” Omrani said. “We need city government to do the right things so it stays the best.”