{"id":349,"date":"2017-05-05T00:15:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T21:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=349"},"modified":"2017-08-08T00:18:09","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T21:18:09","slug":"asm-kamal-rahman-wants-to-be-hamtramcks-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/asm-kamal-rahman-wants-to-be-hamtramcks-mayor\/","title":{"rendered":"Asm Kamal Rahman Wants to Be Hamtramck\u2019s Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"
As the Hamtramck mayoral race begins, Asm Kamal Rahman stands apart from other candidates in the field. While Mayor Karen Majewski, City Councilmember Mohammed Hassan and former city councilmember Cathie Gordon have prior years of political experience, Rahman is new to politics. \u201cI want to make sure residents are being served properly and with respect,\u201d Rahman told the Yemeni-American News via email. \u201cI have both degree and experience with finance and it is vital to regain city\u2019s control back from the state.\u201d<\/strong><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Eli Newman – Hamtramck –\u00a0The Yemeni American News<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rahman, 48-years-old, was born in Bangladesh. He came to the United States in 1986, settling near Muath Bin-Jabal Masjid. As a teenager, he attended Hamtramck High School before going to Wayne County Community College, eventually earning a bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s in finance from Walsh College. From there, Rahman worked a series of jobs before finding a position as an accountant at the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, where he\u2019s been for more than two decades. Now managing the billing system, Rahman seeks to use his knowledge to improve the accuracy of Hamtramck\u2019s water bill metering, as well as tapping into money set aside by the Great Lakes Water Authority for low-income residential assistance. \u201cDetroit residents already used over $6 million from the program while Hamtramck keep refusing to offer the benefit to its residents,\u201d Rahman said.\u00a0 \u201cI worked with Detroit program to implement it and qualified residents are getting approximately one-thousand dollars towards their bills. This is a significant amount and I think over 70 percent of the Hamtramck residents can benefit from this plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rahman has roles in various community groups, including the restoration of Hamtramck\u2019s NAACP branch and serving as vice president for Bangladeshi American Public Affairs Committee (BAPAC). \u201c[Hamtramck\u2019s] diversity is our biggest asset.\u00a0 We should market our diversity to attract people and customers to our business,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cI worked to obtain designation for Banglatown business district by the state and local authorities. We should do similar marketing campaign and designation for other business districts. We should take advantage of the downtown Detroit revitalization and improve Hamtramck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rahman also aligns himself with various social causes. \u201cIn 1993 I served as the news and media liaison for the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and also led the Bosnian Task Force of Michigan, a committee formed to raise awareness to the Bosnian War,\u201d Rahman explains. \u201cI worked with different communities to organize rallies both locally and nationally. I also actively participated in rallies against the war in Iraq, Gaza, West Bank [and] Kashmir.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rahman was also appointed to the board for the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, a move that was met with some criticism from Hamtramck\u2019s LGBT community. In 2008, Rahman worked to repel an anti-discrimination ordinance that included protections for gender and sexual orientation along with race, ethnicity and income. Rahman said the ordinance was poorly written, and would have forced religious groups to compromise their values. \u201cThe position of mayor represents a very diverse community. I respect everyone\u2019s rights and do not support discrimination of any kind against anyone,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cFederal and State law covers any discrimination issues and the mayor has no enforcement authority.\u201d Contrary to his statements, there are no discrimination laws protecting LGBT people on a<\/p>\n

federal level, nor are LGBT people covered in Michigan\u2019s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act.<\/p>\n

Rahman believes the biggest challenge facing Hamtramck moving forward is financial instability and crime. He believes a lot crime goes unreported due to poor communication between neighborhoods and government officials. \u201cI will recruit resident volunteers from different ethnicity [sic] and work with the city to help the residents for a better city hall experience.\u201d He\u2019s also looking to mirror the Detroit Promise scholarship, which provides tuition free college in state for qualifying high school graduates. \u201cMayor Duggan offered his assistance and directed one of his staff member to work with me on this subject,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cI plan to work hard to bring this program to our community. I know first-hand how difficult it is to carry the burden of student loan and maintain a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Asm Kamal Rahman sees the city\u2019s newest communities as its biggest asset. \u201cHamtramck has come a long way and currently people from Yemen, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Ukraine filled the void left by the Polish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Hamtramck mayoral race begins, Asm Kamal Rahman stands apart from other candidates in the field. While Mayor Karen Majewski, City Councilmember Mohammed Hassan and former city councilmember Cathie Gordon have prior years of political experience, Rahman is new to politics. \u201cI want to make sure residents are being served properly and with respect,\u201d […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}