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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Glendale Attorney Moves to Armenia

Zareh Sinanyan, an attorney in Glendale and a member of the City Council, has resigned his position to work for the government of Armenia. In his new job he will work as the prime minister’s high commissioner for diaspora affairs, a secretary level cabinet position, starting this month. He will report directly to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Sinanyan submitted a resignation letter on June 7 to the Glendale City Council effective immediately – he said goodbye to Glendale officials and members of the community at a council meeting on June 11. “I will use this experience I’ve gained in the last 33 years of residing in the U.S. to make Armenia a stronger nation by strengthening the ties it has to its many sons and daughters dispersed throughout the world,” said Sinanyan, addressing the board. “I hope that those initiatives I have championed will find champions in all of you and whoever may be elected to the City Council in the future.” Sinanyan was the second most senior councilmember apart from Mayor Ara Najarian. He served as mayor twice in 2013 and 2017. This is the first time that Najarian can recall a councilmember has left to take a position with a foreign government. “It really hurts me to see you leave, but that’s being selfish,” Najarian said during the June 11 meeting. “I know you’re strongly committed to making Armenia and the diaspora, which are the Armenian communities throughout the world, united and much stronger together.” Glendale accepted applications to fill the council seat through June 17. A special meeting took place June 21 for councilmembers to discuss applicants, and Frank Quintero was chosen to serve on the council until the next city election in March 2020. If the council didn’t make an appointment within 30 days of the meeting, the city would have called a special election for the position. Law firm’s closure Sinanyan confirmed he will shutter his solo practice law firm at 1515 Bel Aire Drive. The firm handled cases in real estate, insurance and civil litigation. His wife Lori and their children continue to reside in Glendale, but plan to join him in Armenia in September 2020. Sinanyan has had a working relationship with Pashinyan dating back to 2015, three years before the Velvet Revolution in 2018, city officials said. Glendale has the highest population of Armenians outside of Armenia itself, after the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in eastern Turkey, according to the city’s website. “We were introduced by a mutual friend at a protest demonstration in Yerevan dealing with the unjustified increase in electricity fees,” he told the Business Journal in an email. “We have been friends ever since.” In his goodbye to the City Council, Sinanyan explained the motivation to return to his homeland. “As an Armenian American, the grandson of displaced people, refugees from the Armenian Genocide, we were once again forced to flee our homeland because of Communism. I feel the great duty to return home and serve the 7 million Armenians worldwide with stories that are similar, if not identical to mine,” he said. In addition to his time as an attorney and city council member, Sinanyan served as president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.

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