Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman, right, swearing in Democrat Anu Natarajan as a City Council member. (Photo: Courtesy, Anu Natarajan)

Democrat Anu Natarajan is looking forward to the challenge of developing the urban core of Fremont City and feels she has been grooming herself all along for being on the City Council, an opportunity she got when she was selected this week from among several candidates to fill the vacancy created by Council member Bob Wasserman’s election as Mayor.

Natarajan, 42, an architecture graduate from the University of Bangalore, was sworn in on Dec. 27 and begins work on Jan. 11. “It’s exciting and scary at the same time. It’s a new challenge and I know I will give it my best shot. Knowing it’s a lot more responsibility is scary,” she told News India-Times.

Previously on the Fremont City Planning Commission from 1995 to 2001, Natarajan will be the only architect in the five-member Council. She has worked for many firms around California before branching out recently with her own consulting practice. She is also going to be the only woman-member on what for 2 years has been an all-male Council. And being Indian American, she also diversifies the Council to represent the Bay Area’s growing Indian American population.

Almost 40 percent of Fremont’s populace is Asian, mainly Chinese and Indian. And while there was already a Chinese American on the Council, Natarajan will be the first-ever Indian on it.

“It almost seems like I’ve been planning for this all the time. I know all of the issues in Fremont and have also worked with all the other cities in downtown planning, which is probably the most critical area we have to be looking at,” she said.

Since this is an appointment to fill a two-year period, Natarajan has the opportunity to run for election in 2006. “I’m keeping all my options I’m not saying I won’t run, but I’m not saying I am getting into this with the aim of running in 2006. Obviously, I’m interested in doing this. Certainly my options in two years are”

The Argus, a local newspaper that urged Natarajan’s selection over the other contenders with greater name-visibility, said apart from her other qualities, “she obviously understands the development issues,” facing Fremont. Natarajan also has a Masters degree in urban planning from the University of Washington in Seattle.

She has been active in Fremont’s Indian Community Center, which has facilities at Milpitas and Sunnyvale, as chair for Architecture and Facility Planning. She has lived in the Fremont area for nine years.

“We think it’s important that the city’s governing bodies reflect the makeup of the community,” asserted The Argus in its editorial. And the Council seems to have heard that advice.

However, Natarajan’s appointment did not go uncontested. She had strong contenders, including the popular former Fire Department Chief Dan Lydon, and Dirk Lorenz among others. When the four council members listed their six favorites out of a long list of 17 applicants, Natarajan and Lydon were on all four ballots whereas Lorenz, former Planning Commission member Cyndy Mozzetti and Chamber of Commerce chairman Henry Yin were all on three ballots only. The contest then became one between Lydon and Natarajan and she won after the interview last week.

Natarajan came to the U.S. in 1987 on a Rotary International scholarship, but moved back to India for two years in 1992-93,ng her own consulting firm on urban planning in Bangalore. But the decision to pursue a Ph.D. at Seattle and her marriage to Sundaram, a software and wireless technology consultant, brought her back to the U.S.

“Fremont’s main issues are –– its moving to a more urban from suburban community. With that comes the whole issue of thinking how it should look. It is one of five towns that got together in 1956, and what was missing was a central downtown core. We actually came up with a plan a couple of years ago, and now it is ready for developing. We are looking to do that for the next two years, and especially for a retail and restaurants core that the people have been clamoring for,” Natarajan said.

Besides that, all of the cities in California, Natarajan noted, are going through a budget crisis so attracting retail and big business would be priorities. Thirdly, providing choices for housing and making it affordable for different groups of people, with more options for urban living situations, she said would also be part of her agenda.