Candidate could be first UC Merced student elected

If one Merced City Council candidate has his way, he’ll be the first UC Merced student elected to office in the schools’ namesake city.

Daniel Sabzehzar, 21, kicked off his campaign for District 5 of the City Council inside Jantz Bakery on Monday. The senior studying public health also heads a startup business called Marcom Strategies.

“This is a really exciting time for the San Joaquin Valley,” he said. “We have just had the commencement of building the Downtown (Center), which begins an entirely new chapter in the campus-community partnership.”

By fall 2017, the lot across from City Hall is set to hold a 67,400-square-foot building capable of housing about 370 employees.

At the same time, he noted, UC Merced’s 2020 Project is expected to pour more than $1 billion into the campus as it doubles in size. As a student and resident, he said, he understands operating in both worlds and, as a councilman, could help the campus and city grow closer together.

Born in Iowa, Sabzehzar said, he grew up in Fresno and aspires to be a doctor in the San Joaquin Valley. He said Merced’s ills all trace back to poverty and the lack of education.

“I so sincerely believe that there are local solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems,” he said. “By taking back our communities and building them from the ground up, we really can transform that vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle.”

Sabzehzar’s budding company trains students how to do web design, social media and marketing, and then plugs the students into small businesses.

“We can ... empower these kids as essentially in-house marketing agencies at a price that doesn’t burden small businesses,” he said. “And, because students are hungry for experience and businesses need them, we can pair them in these internship programs.”

For the first time, Merced will elect three council seats – 1, 3 and 5 – by district. After prodding in early 2014 from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Merced voters passed a measure to move to districts, what the civil rights group said could give the council more diversity.

Though Merced has a Latino population of 49 percent, no member of the City Council is of Latino descent. Sabzehzar, a volleyball player at UC Merced, was a member of the national volleyball team for El Salvador, his mother’s native country.

Sabzehzar has raised $887 in contributions, according to the latest records.

Matthew Serrato, a deputy district attorney, is the only competition in District 5. He has filed paperwork with the city noting he does not intend to raise or spend more than $2,000 in the year, according to records.

That means he is not required to list contributions to his campaign.

Denise Rossi filed papers to run for office but has since exited the race, according to city records. Her name will still appear on the ballot, according to the Merced County registrar of voters.

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Candidate could be first UC Merced student elected."