Baroukh is one of seven people running for three seats on the City Council and his chances are unclear. Four years ago when he ran, he won by just 55 votes and the top four candidates had only a 1.56 percentage point spread among them.
The seven members of the City Council elect the mayor from among their number and Baroukh has been mayor the last two years.
Falls Church is a wealthy bedroom community outside Washington, DC. It has a population just over 12,000. It is known as one of the most leftist communities in the commonwealth of Virginia—though in the rest of the country, that wouldn’t qualify as very far left of center.
Falls Church was identified in 2011 as the richest jurisdiction in the entire United States with a median annual household income of $133,313.
Baroukh was born in Tehran and came to California as a child. He still speaks Farsi fluently, though all of his education was in the United States.
While it isn’t clear whether Baroukh will win in the May 1 election, May is on his calendar as a happy month already; he will be marrying Bernadette Fancuberta on May 27.
All the seven candidates this year are running as independents. For the last half-century, a local party, Citizens for a Better City (CBC), has endorsed candidates since so many residents are federal employees and have difficulty running as Democrats or Republicans under federal law. But this year, CBC has issued no endorsements, confusing the race.
What’s more, the Falls Church News-Press points out that some of the major issues in the campaign four years have faded away and are no longer relevant in this election.
Baroukh grew up in Los Angeles and graduated with a BA in psychology from Chapman University in Orange, California. He then moved east to get his law degree from the University of Virginia, and stayed in Virginia. He went to work for the federal government after graduation and is currently a senior attorney at the Department of Homeland Security, where he is responsible for immigration and national security issues.
Baroukh’s four-paragraph biography on his campaign website states very clearly that he was born in Iran and speaks Farsi.
Since the municipal elections are held in May, the turnout is traditionally very low. In fact, Falls Church voters decided last fall to move the City Council balloting after this year to the November general elections.
In 2008, the balloting for the three City Council seats was a hot contest among four of the seven candidates. Here are the results, with the “I” identifying the two incumbents, one of whom came in first and the other of whom came in fourth and lost. This year, Baroukh and Lawrence Webb are the two incumbents seeking re-election.
Robin Gardner-I 1,337 9.89%
Nader Baroukh 1,287 9.15%
Lawrence Webb 1,267 8.85%
Lindy Hockenberry-I 1,232 8.33%
Ed Hillegas 837 2.45%
Margaret Housen 609 9.06%
Patrice Lepczyk 137 2.03%