James Bozajian Sworn In As New Calabasas Mayor

CALABASAS, CA —Councilmember James Bozajian began his sixth term as Calabasas mayor Wednesday night during a virtual reorganization ceremony filled with praise for outgoing Mayor Alicia Weintraub’s leadership during a difficult year.

“Thank you to my colleagues - it’s a tremendous honor to be selected to serve for a sixth term as your mayor,” said Bozajian, an attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund who has served on the Calabasas City Council since 1997. “I deeply appreciate the public’s confidence as well. Our citizens have demonstrated enormous patience and compliance with some very tough pandemic-related regulations.”

Bozajian said that his top priorities include a safe reopening, keeping the city budget balanced, hiring a permanent city manager, improve city infrastructure, advocate for Calabasas during the congressional redistricting process, Craftsman's Corner annexations, celebrating the city’s 30th anniversary next year, and reopening the Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center.

Bozajian was also one of many to praise Weintraub’s service as mayor. “You probably had the most difficult year of any mayor in our history, and you justifiably earned universal praise for the strength and character of your leadership in these troubled times as reflected in your universal re-election last month,” he said. “Thank you for your dignity and grace and friendship over the years.”

Weintraub, who has served on the Council since 2015 and completed her first year as mayor, received glowing tributes from all of the other councilmembers and a number of local leaders, including Congressmember Ted Lieu, Senator Henry Stern, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, Rotary Club District Governor Bette Hall, Calabasas Chamber of Commerce President Mark Levinson, Las Virgenes Unified School District Superintendent Dan Stepenosky and Board President Lesli Stein, Calabasas Senior Advisory Board member Carol Washburn, Calabasas Coalition leader Joanne Suwara, and Calabasas Park Homeowners Association President Richard Sherman, who is also Weintraub’s father.

“You held the Council together, you held the city together, you held the staff together, and Alicia went beyond what is expected of a mayor,” said Councilmember Mary Sue Maurer, who was also sworn in Wednesday night as Mayor Pro Tem.

In her outgoing remarks, Weintraub listed her many accomplishments, initiatives, and challenges during the past year, including helping businesses and residents stay safe, solvent, and sane during the COVID-19 pandemic, working to bring better wireless connection to the city, dealing with the fallout of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, managing the city budget, expanding city programming, making sure the city is prepared for fires and earthquakes, and much more.

“2020 is something that we could have never prepared ourselves for, even before COVID,” she said. “Fortunately even with everything else this year, I feel like I was able to make great progress on the issues I prioritized when I took my oath as mayor...I again want to thank my colleagues James, Fred, Mary Sue, and David, and city staff especially those who worked with me late at night and on the weekends. My Women’s Mayors Advancing Community Colleagues, who were the mayors from Malibu, Agoura, and Westlake, the captains of deputies of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, and our fire departments, and the residents of our amazing cities, who did so much to look out for each other, and most importantly my family, who saw our house transition into a city hall and provided me more support than I could have ever dreamed.”

Weintraub was sworn in alongside incoming Councilmember Peter Kraut, an engineer and former Planning Commissioner who was elected in November to his first Council term. Kraut, who ran on a platform of hiring a full-time grant writer and building fiber optic cabling throughout the city, said he was honored to serve on the Council and thanked candidates Susan Fredericks-Ploussard, Alicia Weintraub, and Dennis Washburn for running what he said was a civil and ethical campaign.

“It’s really an honor to be on Council. I’ve known most of you in one fashion for many, many years, and it’s truly humbling to be serving with you,” Kraut said. “I also want to stop and take a moment to say thank you to Alicia Weintraub, to Dennis Washburn, to Susan Fredericks-Ploussard for the campaign that we ran. In a time when national politics was absolutely divisie and it was difficult to hold a conversation, our local politics was the opposite....it was truly an election of Calabasas issues with four people who truly had the city of Calabasas closest to their heart.”