On June 2^nd, 2026 we will have a chance to use the full weight of the electoral process to determine who will represent us on the Richmond City Council for the next four years.

In an effort to help level the playing field, Radio Free Richmond has extended an offer to all six candidates for the Council to post their own words to let you, the voters, know their positions on what they believe to be the important issues.

THIS IS FREE PUBLICITY.

The candidates have also been invited to post guest editorials on the issues of importance.

RFR will post a new candidate statement every couple of days.

RADIO FREE RICHMOND DOES NOT ENDORSE CANDIDATES—THEY OFFER A PLATFORM FOR COMMUNITY MEMBERS TO EXPRESS IDEAS ON ISSUES OF VALUE TO THE COMMUNITY

MY STORY OF RESILIENCE AND SERVICE:

ENGINEERING A PATH TO BETTER LIFE

My journey to the Richmond City Council began long ago with a struggle for basic freedoms and a deep belief in the power of community. Born in Iran as the seventh of eight children to parents with no formal education, I immigrated to the United States in 1985 to pursue higher education after being barred from it in my homeland due to my beliefs.

In 1997, my husband and I moved from UC Berkeley student housing to Richmond to raise our children in a home of our own.

My family in 1997 when we moved to Richmond

POWER OF LOVE UNDER BRUTAL REPRESSIONOur new nest in Richmond was a world away from the repression we had fled. In Iran, I was barred from higher education and government work — but my fiancé suffered far worse. A college student arrested for his beliefs, Reza was tortured and originally sentenced to death before that was commuted to twenty years. For years, our only connection was letters written on prison forms, each page marked with inspection stamp.

One heart-wrenching letter told me they had not given him my letters for eight months; and that he had not been able to write for four months, meaning that he was held in a solitary cell and unable to write. Watch here to get a glimpse of what life was like: https://youtu.be/WfUruJcDmho?si=0FEvgfbtGX4mrWoC

BUILDING A LIFE THROUGH HARDSHIP

I worked manual jobs like dishwashing and elder care while putting myself through community college. I was a senior at UC Berkeley when Reza, my fiancé, was released and risked his life being smuggled through the Kurdistan mountains to join me in America. We were finally united and married, beginning a new chapter built on a shared appreciation for freedom and democracy. I eventually earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley—a feat I achieved while raising two children, despite an attrition rate of 30% for single students. This hardship led me to advocate for a student-parent leave policy that has now spread across all UC Berkeley graduate schools.

                                                                       A letter from my fiancé from prison

CIVIC SERVANT, LABOR ADVOCATE, AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER

I chose to build a career in civic service engineering, refusing lucrative defense industry related jobs to focus on infrastructure that serves the public. My belief in fairness led me to leadership in organized labor, where I lobbied in Sacramento as a leader for the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) to protect workers' rights. Defending human rights has been my passion and way of getting over the past trauma. As a human rights defender, I have written many articles in defense of human rights of women, children, Kurds, and Bahai’s. See my website: http://soheila.org/.  I co-founded Stop Stoning Forever which saved lives of 9 women and 2 men.

Read here: http://www.satyamag.com/feb07/bana.html

COMMUNITY ADVOCATE AND YOUR COUNCILMEMBER

Advocating for my community’s public safety was a natural way of defending their basic social rights which led me to establish the West Contra Costa Fire Safe Council, http://wccfiresafe.org/, where I work with regional stakeholders such as Con Fire, EBRPD and EBMUD to enhance our wildfire safety. As your Councilmember, I use my engineering background to solve systemic problems. Whether it is addressing wildfire safety, improving parks and sports fields for the youth, paving a path to homeownership to stop gentrification, or launching Richmond’s first cultural celebrations like Nowruz, my goal is to enhance quality of life through city services and make government work for everyone. Check out my website to learn more, http://soheilabana4richmond.org/, and feel free to connect with me via email mail to: [email protected] or phone, (510) 779-7280.

Today, I still live in the same house with my husband, Reza Yazdi, who is now writing his memoirs as a prisoner of conscience. We are incredibly proud of the two children we raised here, Mitra and Alborz.