A passion for community service

I've lived my whole life in California. I was born and raised in San Jose, and moved to Los Angeles for college, earning my Aeronautical Engineering degree from UCLA. I stayed in LA for twenty years before moving to Seaside in 2022 to be closer to family. It was the first time since I left San Jose that we all lived in the same town, let alone within miles of each other. We still can't believe we call the Monterey Peninsula home.

I currently work as a project manager in the healthcare construction industry. Basically, we ensure that hospitals are built safely and are outfitted with the needed equipment and technology, that staff are properly trained to provide patient care in the new space, and we develop and implement plans to move patients into the new facilities when they open.

That said, I've also worked many jobs across many different fields. I worked in the Fusion Energy research lab at UCLA, I pursued a career in the entertainment industry in LA for ten years as an actor, writer and creative director, and when I was younger, worked in a bagel shop and got to eat three bagels a day (when my metabolism could still manage it).

2016 changed everything for me like it did for so many people.

I was always interested in politics but never saw myself involved directly. I watched the Daily Show nightly. I regularly read the New York Times and the Washington Post and as the 2016 campaign ramped up between Hilary and Trump, I found myself checking FiveThirtyEight daily to see how the polls looked.

I never imagined he would win.

But he did. And that was the moment that I knew I had to do something to make my voice and my values heard.

So in 2018, when we had a chance to take back the House, I quit my job and found Katie Hill's campaign in northern LA County where she was trying to flip a longtime Republican seat blue. I started as a full-time volunteer before getting hired on to the campaign as a Field Organizer and I was eventually promoted to Field Director and ran a campaign office in Simi Valley.

I was excited and inspired to wake up every day and go to work. I was making a difference in people's lives, helping them see that they weren't alone in their communities.

When Katie won, I knew that I wanted to continue to serve and was incredibly lucky to be hired onto her staff as her Senior Field Representative. My wife, Ashley, and I moved to Santa Clarita where I served in the district and helped connect my community to Washington DC

It was devastating when Katie resigned, but I knew the work had to continue. I wanted to work on homelessness and affordable housing, economic development and protecting open spaces, so I announced a run for City Council in Santa Clarita in January of 2020. Two months after I announced, the City was sued for violating the California Voting Rights act. I believe that voters should select their elected officials, and not the other way around, so I suspended my campaign and created an Independent Districting Committee to draw fair and representative district maps. This year, Santa Clarita will be using a map to elect City Council members based on the map developed by the committee I led.

In 2022, when our Assemblywoman announced she would run for Congress, I announced a bid for the California Assembly with the support of local Democrats, but when another Democrat entered the race from a different part of the district with 20 years of experience as a union organizer for the California Nurses Association and a significant fundraising lead, I bowed out of the race.

Ashley and I were ready for a change.

My brother and his partner, Steph, had left LA and moved to Seaside a few years earlier and now had a new baby boy, Zia. My parents moved to Del Rey Oaks to be closer to Z, and Ashley and I fell in love with a little house in Seaside so we made the move and have never looked back.

I was not intending to get involved with politics when we moved here. In fact, when I was first asked to run for office, I said I wasn't interested.

But the more I thought about the airport board, the more I felt like I could make a difference and serve this community I have come to love.

I have served as the Vice President of a board for a non-profit organization that served over 10,000 veterans.

My experience working with hospitals being constructed will be invaluable to the airport board when we start the project of replacing our airport with a brand new terminal in September of next year.

I know how to do this job, and I want to put my knowledge and experience to work for you.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I hope that you will consider me to serve on the Monterey Peninsula Airport District board to represent District 1. And even if you don't feel like my experience and goals for the board are right for this district, I still encourage you to please vote and make your voice heard.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Ahmadi