The Tehran city council has elected a little-known technocrat to the politically sensitive post of mayor, Iranian state media report.

Pirouz Hanachi, 54, is the third mayor of Tehran to be elected since reformists swept the city-council elections in May 2017.

Hanachi's selection needs to be approved by the Interior Ministry within 10 days in a mostly procedural process.

Hanachi, an architecture professor at Tehran University, has previously served as deputy minister at the Roads and Urban Development Ministry.

He replaces Mohammad Ali Afshani, who came out of retirement to take the mayor's position in May but had to give up office after a law adopted in September banned retirees from holding official posts.

Afshani's predecessor, Mohammad Ali Najafi, who became mayor following the May 2017 polls, resigned in March citing health concerns.

With reporting by AP and AFP</s>The city council in Iran’s capital on Tuesday elected Pirouz Hanachi, a little-known technocrat, to the politically sensitive post of mayor, state television said. Hanachi is the third mayor of Tehran to be elected by the city council since reformists swept to power in local polls in May 2017. Hanachi, 54, was a deputy mayor after the reformists took office in August 2017. The Interior Ministry has yet to confirm his election, a mostly procedural process. The reformists have promised transparency in running the city following corruption charges against their conservative rivals who controlled the Tehran council for 14 years, AFP said. The post, which has changed hands three times in 18 months, had served as a political springboard for conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president between 2005 and 2013. Another officeholder, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was unsuccessful in his bids for the presidency.</s>Iran state TV: Tehran gets new mayor after 'no-retirees' law

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's state TV says the Tehran city council has elected a new mayor after a law adopted in September banned retirees from being employed in government positions.

The report says 54-year-old Pirouz Hanachi was chosen for the post. He is an architecture professor at the Fine Arts Faculty of the Tehran University who also served as the deputy mayor for urban development.

Hanachi replaces Mohammad Ali Afshani, who had stepped out of retirement to take the job in April, after Mohammad Ali Najafi resigned over a scandal in which hard-liners criticized him for attending a performance at a primary school that included girls dancing on stage before the audience.

Hanachi's selection still has to be approved by the Interior Ministry within a period of 10 days.</s>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s state TV says the Tehran city council has elected a new mayor after a law adopted in September banned retirees from being employed in government positions. The report says 54-year-old…

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s state TV says the Tehran city council has elected a new mayor after a law adopted in September banned retirees from being employed in government positions.

The report says 54-year-old Pirouz Hanachi was chosen for the post. He is an architecture professor at the Fine Arts Faculty of the Tehran University who also served as the deputy mayor for urban development.

Hanachi replaces Mohammad Ali Afshani, who had stepped out of retirement to take the job in April, after Mohammad Ali Najafi resigned over a scandal in which hard-liners criticized him for attending a performance at a primary school that included girls dancing on stage before the audience.

Hanachi’s selection still has to be approved by the Interior Ministry within a period of 10 days.

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.</s>SHERIDAN — Mayor Roger Miller and city council members clashed over the contents of a city handbook designed to clarify and define the duties and authorities of city officials during a study session Monday.

Council and the mayor have worked on the document for several months and were scheduled to approve it as part of the consent agenda during next week’s council meeting. However, Council President Richard Bridger said he recently became aware of edits Miller had made to the document that changed the definitions of mayoral authority that council had previously agreed upon.

“We’ve been through several drafts and iterations of this handbook to get to the point I thought we were at last week,” Bridger said. “However, when I was actually doing Public Pulse [Thurs. Nov. 8], I asked for the most recent version of the Mayor/Council Handbook and I noticed that a lot of edits had been made by the mayor and through a miscommunication, I was not aware of these.”

Bridger asked city staff to red line Miller’s edits and presented council with a draft highlighting those changes on Monday. All five members of council said they also were not aware of the changes Miller made until late last week and that the lack of transparency regarding the revisions was more concerning than the content of those revisions.

Miller insisted that he asked staff to forward an updated version of the handbook to council after he made changes to it nearly two weeks ago. The changes Miller made attributed more executive authority to the mayor, which he argued were granted by city laws and ordinances. Without those edits, Miller said the document was still unclear in several respects.

“What I’m asking council to do is step back, stop with the vitriol and the silliness that you guys are doing in reference to this handbook and actually take time to read it,” Miller said. “Take time to understand it and take time to understand that this is a governing document that should help us run and operate and work through all situations for our city.”

City clerk Cecilia Good included the mayor’s revisions in the handbook draft as part of the agenda for Monday’s study session, which was published on Friday, Nov. 9. Still, council members pointed out that the mayor’s changes were not highlighted in the version Good sent out, which gave the appearance that nothing had been changed since council last reviewed the document.

“We only got the changes by happenstance,” said Council Vice President Erin Hanke. “If (Bridger) had not been doing Public Pulse, in theory it sounds like this new version just would have been slipped in on the consent agenda, which is both shameful and I worry about the possible illegality of trying to slip a document purposefully past the council.”

Following the meeting, Miller said he believes council’s frustration Monday night was a sign of its unwillingness to discuss the extent of mayoral authority under city ordinances.

“This meeting was to talk about these types of issues,” Miller said. “They clearly do not want to talk about them still, and again, and that is why they threw, in my opinion, a temper tantrum.”

Bridger said, as did other members of council during the meeting, that council had worked with the mayor on the handbook for several months now and was upset that significant changes were made without council’s knowledge.

“The way that it was done was sort of underhanded and everybody agreed previously that we were fine with the document that was presented, and the mayor said he was fine with the document that was presented,” Bridger said.

During the meeting, Miller agreed he will put the version of the handbook the council agreed with before his revisions on the agenda. He said following the meeting, however, that he still considers that version incomplete and plans to vote against it.

“What I’m asking council to do is step back, stop with the vitriol and the silliness that you guys are doing in reference to this handbook and actually take time to read it,” Miller said.

“Take time to understand it and take time to understand that this is a governing document that should help us run and operate and work through all situations for our city.”

City clerk Cecilia Good included the mayor’s revisions in the handbook draft as part of the agenda for Monday’s study session, which was published on Friday, Nov. 9. Still, council members pointed out that the mayor’s changes were not highlighted in the version Good sent out, which gave the appearance that nothing had been changed since council last reviewed the document.

“We only got the changes by happenstance,” said Council Vice President Erin Hanke. “If (Bridger) had not been doing Public Pulse, in theory it sounds like this new version just would have been slipped in on the consent agenda, which is both shameful and I worry about the possible illegality of trying to slip a document purposefully past the council.”

Following the meeting, Miller said he believes council’s frustration Monday night was a sign of its unwillingness to discuss the extent of mayoral authority under city ordinances.

“This meeting was to talk about these types of issues,” Miller said. “They clearly do not want to talk about them still, and again, and that is why they threw, in my opinion, a temper tantrum.”

Bridger said, as did other members of council during the meeting, that council had worked with the mayor on the handbook for several months now and was upset that significant changes were made without council’s knowledge.

“The way that it was done was sort of underhanded and everybody agreed previously that we were fine with the document that was presented, and the mayor said he was fine with the document that was presented,” Bridger said.

During the meeting, Miller agreed he will put the version of the handbook the council agreed with before his revisions on the agenda. He said following the meeting, however, that he still considers that version incomplete and plans to vote against it.</s>Iranians took to the streets of Tehran on Sunday to mark the 39th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The demonstration comes just weeks after anti-government protests rocked cities across the country.

It also follows last week's return to an Iranian prison of 81-year-old American hostage Baquer Namazi, after a four-day leave for health reasons. Namazi's son Siamek, 41, is also a hostage.

For Americans, the events of 1979 conjure painful memories of 52 U.S. diplomats and citizens being held captive for 444 days, from November 1979 to January 1981. The hostage crisis helped lead to Republican Ronald Reagan's defeat of Democratic incumbent President Jimmy Carter in November 1980.

For Iranians, the era represents the overthrow of U.S.-backed Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlav, aka "the Shah of Iran," and the return from exile of Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini, aka the Islamic ruler Ayatollah Khomeini.

Sunday's demonstration, in support of iran's government, included traditional slogans against the United States and Israel. Hundreds of thousands converged on the capital city's central Azadi Square, where President Hassan Rouhani was to address the crowd.

In its successes abroad, Iran has helped push back the Islamic State group in Iraq and assisted embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in regaining strategic ground in his country's long war.

Domestically, however, the country's economy still struggles despite its 2015 landmark nuclear deal with world powers.

In late December and early January, protests erupted across the country over the economy and later morphed into demonstrations directly challenging the government.

The Namazis are not the only Americans being unjustly detained by Iran: Retired FBI agent Robert Levinson has been held since 2007.

Princeton graduate student Xiyue Wang was arrested in 2016 while conducting research for his dissertation. Another American, Karan Vafadari, who ran an art gallery in Tehran, was just sentenced for 27 years because of his religious identity.

President Donald Trump has vowed to impose sanctions on Iran if the American prisoners are not released immediately.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>After a nearly forty-year ban, hundreds of Iranian women were allowed to attend an international soccer final at a stadium in Tehran on Saturday.</s>MANISTEE — Manistee City Council members selected a new mayor and mayor pro-tem during the annual Organizational Meeting on Tuesday night. Roger Zielinski was elected mayor and Lynda Beaton will serve as mayor pro-tem.

Zielinski was nominated by council member Dale Cooper, and had supporting votes from council members Jim Grabowski and Erin Pontiac. Beaton was also nominated for mayor, and had votes of support from council members Mick Szymanski and Chip Goodspeed.

“I feel honored to be in this chair, this position,” said mayor Zielinski. “I will do everything in my power to do the very best job that I can for the taxpayers in the City of Manistee.”

For mayor pro-tem, Beaton was nominated by Goodspeed; Szymanski nominated by Beaton; and

In the first round, Grabowski pulled in three votes from Cooper, Zielinski and himself; Beaton voted for Szymanski; and Pontiac, Goodspeed and Szymanski voted for Beaton.

In a second round of voting, Beaton was elected mayor pro-tem by a 4-3 vote.

“I can’t wait to start a new season on city council. Thanks for all of your support,” said mayor pro-tem Beaton. “Let’s have a good time trying to figure out the problems that faces us.”

Council members were also sworn in at Tuesday’s meeting.

The newest council member, Szymanski, was recently elected to city council’s 5th district seat with 1,349 votes. On election night, Szymanski said he was honored by the overwhelming support.

“I would like to thank all of the people who supported me,” he said, after the election on Nov. 6. “I hope that I live up to their expectations.”

Jim Smith, who previously served as mayor and served two terms on city council, ran for re-election to the 5th district seat and received 959 votes. Smith served his last council meeting on Nov. 7, and said he will now take on a new role, which he is looking forward to.

Also sworn into council were incumbents Cooper for the 1st district, mayor Zielinski for the 3rd District and Pontiac for the 7th District seat. Each will serve two year terms.

On Tuesday, council adopted its guidelines, and no changes were made to those already established.

Regular meetings shall be held on the first and third Tuesdays of each month, starting at 7 p.m. with work sessions conducted on the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. Exceptions are made for election dates, Michigan Municipal League conferences and holidays.
The Islamic City Council of Tehran appoints Pirouz Hanachi as the new mayor of Tehran, the third in 18 months.