Rod4RSM

Meet Rod

I chose this place
on purpose.

I grew up not far from here and moved to Rancho Santa Margarita ten years ago. It was untouched enough to still feel like a neighborhood, but it was still a city. No gridlock feeling. Easy to make friends. A decade later I am raising five kids here and I have not once regretted the choice.

Rod Ganjifard, head and shoulders, in a navy suit.
Filing as Technology Executive / Father
Rod and his wife on their wedding day on the grass at Lago Santa Margarita, the lake and the houses on the far shore behind them.

Our whole story happened at that lake.

I met my wife here. We got engaged at the lake. Then covid took the wedding we had planned, so we got married there too, on the grass, looking at the water and the houses on the other side.

So when I talk about the lake and the trails and the parks, understand that I am not talking about line items. I am talking about the place my family started. That is also why I am unsentimental about maintaining it properly: things you love should not be allowed to quietly fall apart until somebody proposes a bond measure.

Five kids, all in local schools.

Which means I have skin in the game on every decision this council makes about youth programs, fields, traffic and schools. I am not studying these issues. I am living them on a Tuesday afternoon.

  • CTOof a large Orange County law firm
  • Pop Warner coachthree seasons with Santa Margarita
  • San Francisco Solanoparish, active member
  • Reform CrossFit RSMand weekends walking the lake
  • Wafflesour Mastiff, and the reason for most weekend laps around the lake

Why I am running

It is time for the next generation.

The same few people have held these seats for years. That is not a personal attack, it is arithmetic. When the same handful of people make every decision for that long, they stop hearing the city and start hearing each other.

Look at what happened at the Bell Tower. An after-school program that served RSM kids for twelve years wound down, and a museum was floated for the same building. Whatever you think of the museum, a city that can find room for one and not the other has its priorities inverted.

I run technology for a large Orange County law firm. My actual job is reading contracts, interrogating budgets and telling vendors no. That is not a glamorous skill. It is exactly the skill this job needs.

I read the budget. You should see what’s in it.
Rod and his wife with their five children under the arched underpass at Lago Santa Margarita.

The seven of us, at the lake. This is the whole argument, really.

What I will actually do about it.

Five priorities and three things I will fight for, with the numbers attached.

See where I stand