Black Voice News Online - Editorials By Hardy Brown

Editorials By Hardy Brown

Thursday, 07 June 2007

Ali Sahabi Makes Good Music

Hardy L. Brown

My nephew Floyd Brown used to play the accordion, and all his cousins would laugh, but an accordion is a musical instrument that expands in and out to make good music if, like Floyd, you knew how to play it. Its history dates back to ancient Egypt and Greece. It makes a sound going both ways by air being forced over reeds inside, so the more it changes the more it stays the same if you know which buttons to push. Now you might ask what in the world does an accordion have to do with a meeting I was asked to attend this past Friday in Riverside on the "Green Valley Initiative of the Inland Empire," vision to develop environmentally oriented businesses and communities.

Well, I witnessed the coming together of businesses, and elected leaders from federal, state, county and the cities of Riverside and San Bernardino County. There were Republicans and Democrats, Blacks, Indians, Asians, Whites and Hispanics. There were heads of our universities, community colleges and K through 12th grade school districts. In addition we had the leadership of many community based organizations all gathered around the idea of coming together to make the Inland Empire "Green" for our people. Many of the newcomers praised the coming together as a great idea and a good beginning to working together because they have never seen this togetherness before.

Ali Sahabi

This is good while at the same time brought back some memories of when I first came to the Inland Empire. I recall the old timers telling me when this area was one county and then split to become Riverside and San Bernardino County. As I witnessed the growth over the past four decades, I've seen the Inland Empire with only one congressional district that encompassed the cities of Riverside and San Bernardino, Colton, Rialto, Fontana, Ontario, Bloomington and Rubidoux cities, held by George Brown. From that district I saw the county boards of supervisors, mayors, educational institutions and businesses work together in order to get more federal and state money for CETA, healthcare, education, transportation and other programs to make the region what it is today. There was Kaiser Steel in Fontana, Bourns and ROHR in Riverside, Kaiser Permanente Medical Care all serving the Inland Empire. The University of California, Riverside served the entire region as an institution of higher learning before Cal State University, San Bernardino. The Harris Department had stores located in Riverside, Redlands and its corporate store in San Bernardino. Even the Black community AME Churches began in Riverside with Allen Chapel and then they helped St. Paul in San Bernardino get their start over one hundred years ago. They still fellowship together at least once a year. The defunct Inland Area Urban League and OIC (Opportunities Industrial Center) served both counties, just ask Mike Teer, Woodie Rucker Hughes, Ola Faye Stephens, Clarence Butler, Art Forbes, Bailey Dodson, Claude Giles just to name a few who worked both counties. You get the picture that these two counties were one then because they realized working together they could get more while still maintaining there separate identity. They have found working together sometimes makes good music so all of us can enjoy our way of life. As the region has grown and people changed the idea to pull apart like the accordion seem attractive sometimes but the music sounds funny without a knowledgeable player.

At each stage in the population movement our need to adjust how we work with each other occurs and we need a knowledgeable accordion player to handle the keys on the keyboard. When the accordion was first invented it did not have keyboards or buttons on the other end. Each player made adjustments to the instrument without changing the basics function of making music but only improve the sound.

In the past I witnessed Norton Younglove, Nancy Smith, Bob Hammock, all county supervisors from San Bernardino and Riverside, Ab Brown and Bob Holcomb mayors of the two largest cities and other mayors sit around the table to discuss issues of mutual interest on behalf of their citizens. These were some of the accordion players of this region in the past. Now we have another accordion player who is responsible for bringing the region together for the purpose of this Green Valley Initiative and that is Ali Sahabi.

Ali is president of SE Corporation, a privately held, California based land planning entitlement and development firm. He is a member of several industry and civic organizations such as University of Southern California, National Multi Housing Council, Corona Redevelopment Agency and local chambers of commerce. He holds a Masters of Real Estate Development degree from USC and a Bachelor of Science in Management from Pepperdine University. But I came to know him from his generous donation of $100,000 to UCR to honor Dr. Edward J. Blakely. Ed Blakely is the most distinguished urban social scientist in the world and grew up here in the Inland Empire and graduated from UCR plus taught and mentored Ali at USC. Ali was inspired by Ed's teachings and is now putting that inspiration to work here in Edward Blakely's community. For those who don't know Blakely is Black and got his education in our local public schools and his spiritual teaching at St. Paul AME Church in San Bernardino.

So with Ali Sahabi's leadership and vision he has been able to pull the Inland Empire back together for the purpose of improving our lives with a new industry that will generate an economic boom for us. It is a tremendous challenge for us but not impossible. The reason I say that is when Congressman Ken Calvert had to leave the session early and the announcer, Daniel Cozad said "Mr. Calvert we need you to stay." Calvert responded, Congressman Joe Baca is here to cover for us. Calvert is Republican from Riverside and Baca is a Democrat from San Bernardino. The meeting was spearheaded by Riverside Supervisor Bob Buster and San Bernardino Supervisor Paul Biane.

Yes, my nephew has long given up the accordion, no doubt because of his cousins, but the Inland Empire has a new accordion player and his name is Ali Sahabi and he is making good music.

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