Councilman Ahmad Zahra was a doctor and film producer. Now, his desire to serve South Fullerton is personal
During a Fullerton council meeting on June 2, in the midst of Black Lives Matter protests across the nation, Councilman Ahmad Zahra found himself enacting a scene often relegated to movies or award shows.
He said he had prepared some remarks but then became overwhelmed. He put his notes away and spoke from his heart.
“No one should die because of who they are,” he said. “No one should be afraid because of who they are.”
Zahra said that this has been a very emotional time for him.
“I’m a gay, Syrian immigrant,” he said. “I know what discrimination is. I’ve experienced it firsthand. I know what racism is … To me, this is very personal. You run for public office to be able to make this type of change, to let people know that they are represented in every way. So people feel like they are welcome in society and their community is not marginalized.”
Zahra grew up in both Syria and England, and he initially worked as a pathologist before he decided to pivot to a film career in his mid-20s and move to the U.S.
He produced films including “On Common Grounds,”a documentary about Christian, Muslim and Jewish volunteers building a house together for a poor family in Mexico, and “Three Veils,” a feature about three young Middle Eastern American women, one of whom is a lesbian struggling with her sexuality.
Working in entertainment, Zahra often watched his actor and director colleagues lead public lives. But he had mostly been behind the scenes — until several years ago when he decided to run for office in Fullerton, where he’s lived for two decades.
“Film was an early passion, and it can reach a wider audience and change people’s minds and hearts,” he said. “But when you look at society at large, you start realizing, it’s more than minds and hearts. There’s a system that needs to be continuously changed for the better … a whole array of things that can only be achieved by changing laws and making sure everyone has an opportunity.”
Zahra lives in south Fullerton, a predominantly Latino and low-income community.
Fifty percent of elementary school students in his district are under the poverty line, he explained. When Zahra realized that, he created his own school supply drive and started doing charity work.
“But it just wasn’t enough,” he said. “I really wanted to step up and help my neighbors and the families that I see every day.”
He decided to run for office in District 5, after serving on the Orange County Water District, and he was elected in November 2018.
Egleth Nuncci, the community liaison for Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Healthy Neighborhoods at the Richmond Neighborhood Center, appreciates that Zahra makes it a priority to educate and inform the community.
“There are things that we never knew existed,” she said, laughing. “But every Monday, he talks to us about how to get involved. He will answer complaints and take the time to explain things. He’s become so familiar, that whenever we have issues, we’ll say, ‘Let’s call Ahmad.’”
She said that their district is the most at-risk when it comes to the pandemic, because they have many families living in one-bedroom apartments and other dense spaces.
“If you tell Ahmad we need to clean the streets, he will clean it,” she said. “For food drives, he’ll deliver the food himself.”
Since Zahra assumed office, he’s proud that the council is moving forward with a plan for a navigational center that will provide shelter and services for the homeless.
In early April, as the pandemic took hold in Orange County, Zahra sponsored a motion to go beyond county guidelines that require retail business employees to wear masks and also mandate that patrons in the stores wear them. It passed.
In late May, when Black Lives Matter protests began, Zahra said he was in constant contact with the Fullerton city manager and police chief.
Thousands of protesters have converged in Orange County to speak out about the death of unarmed Black man George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police, as well as other Black men, women and children who have died at the hands of police.
“I was apprehensive about the whole thing,” Zahra said. “I wanted to make sure we were protecting the community from one or two people who might go a little bit further with their passion but also that we were facilitating this — allowing it because people need to vent and go out and protest. Where do you strike that balance?”
Faith Forcucci-Morris is an engineer and longtime Fullerton resident, and her family has run CF Dance Academy in Fullerton for 20 years.
She was at the May 30 protest in Fullerton where she said about 150 people marched peacefully, and she said the police came in riot gear, intimidating them with guns with rubber bullets and a SWAT vehicle.
When she heard there wasn’t another protest planned for the next weekend, she and her husband organized one themselves.
Zahra had worked with Forcucci-Morris’ mother, Leanna Forcucci, the chair of Fullerton Collaborative nonprofit, and not wanting a repeat of the weekend before, he reached out to offer his support.
“There was good communication and an understanding about why people were protesting, and the community helped shift our police strategy in a very positive way,” he said.
Approximately 1,500 people showed up, and police did not have a visible presence. Zahra spoke, alongside other government officials.
“[Most of them] spoke in platitudes, they were very general and didn’t really address our platform, which was defunding the police,” Forcucci-Morris said. “Ahmad was the only one to speak to that a little bit and confront it, and even though he didn’t say exactly what I wanted to hear, I really appreciate that.”
Forcucci-Morris said Zahra has been providing guidance for her and her husband, who started Fullerton for Change, and the woman behind another new organization, Defund Police Fullerton.
“He is definitely taking a lot of time to listen to us and to hear our thoughts,” she said. “And even if he doesn’t exactly agree on everything, he really wants us to have a voice.”
Forcucci-Morris also appreciated that Zahra was the the one that got the city to fly the Pride flag at City Hall.
Zahra said that his short time in office has been a personal and challenging journey.
“I’m not a career politician,” he said. “The reason I want to contribute and the relationships I have in the city are very personal to me. These are my neighbors.”
He was disappointed in the O.C. Board of Education’s recent recommendation that students go back to school without masks or social distancing. He’s especially concerned about the lower-income students in his district, whose families may not have the resources to transfer to private schools or to manage home-schooling if schools open in a way that’s unsafe.
The Orange County Board of Education voted 4-1 to reopen school campuses but is leaving the decision up to individual school districts.
“I think it’s essential that we get back to education. The question is, can we come up with a model and a system that does not disadvantage lower-income students and at the same time maintain health for everybody as much as possible?” he said.
All of this is uncharted territory, he said, and he thinks it’s important to err on the side of caution.
“People are very tense these days,” he said. “I hope everybody just takes a breath, with or without a mask, and takes a step back and sees how we can get through this all together.”
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