Candidate for
Council Member; City of Fremont

Anu Natarajan is running for re-election to the Fremont City Council. Anu is an experienced city planner and architect and has used her wide-ranging skills to advocate for Fremont neighborhoods on the city council. She has the vision to help realize Fremont's promising future by making Fremont a hub for green technology, and the best place in the Bay Area for families to live and work and for our children to go to school.

Anu has been an independent voice on the city council, asking the tough questions on behalf of Fremont's residents and analyzing the merits of each issue before casting her vote. At times she has been the sole vote in opposition to projects she thought were not best for the city and its residents. Anu believes that principled leadership in government is based on consensus-building and community engagement.

During her tenure on the Fremont City Council, Anu has utilized her extensive experience as a city planner to facilitate the general plan process, working through dozens of public meetings to build Fremont's future towards sustainable and long-term economic growth over the next 20 years + a city where people can live and work at well-paying jobs, a city with better restaurant and retail opportunities, an interconnected community with walkable neighborhoods, and a community that provides the best environment for our children, including great schools, parks, bicycle trails, and other recreational activities.

While on the council, Anu facilitated the continued progress of several major infrastructure projects in Fremont--most notably, the BART extension to Warm Springs. She worked with leaders to create shovel-ready projects that helped garner millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding to Fremont businesses and neighborhoods. During her tenure on the Fremont City Council, Fremont has laid the foundation to become a major hub of green technology, attracting businesses such as Solyndra and Solaria.

Anu represents Fremont on a variety of regional boards, including, the Alameda County Waste Management Authority (Stopwaste.org), Alameda County Recycling Board, Silicon Valley Rapid Transit Corridor and BART Warm Springs Extension Policy Advisory Board. Because of Anu's involvement, the city of Fremont has received additional project funding, such as recycling grants. Most importantly, Anu's work on the regional boards ensures that Fremont residents have influence on regional projects that impact our city's neighborhoods.

In 2006, Anu served as the Event Chairperson for Celebrate Fremont, an event geared toward enhancing the quality of life in the Fremont community by celebrating the past, present, and future of Fremont. As the Event Chairperson, Anu marshaled hundreds of volunteers and brought businesses and community members together to commemorate Fremont's 50th Anniversary and celebrate our civic pride.

Anu earned a Masters degree in Urban Design and Planning from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture. Her professional experience includes working as an architect, public agency planner, and as an urban planning consultant to cities throughout the Bay Area. She currently leads the "Realizing the California Dream" project of the American Leadership Forum, Silicon Valley, which aims to create governance and fiscal reforms in California.

Anu and her husband, Sundaram, are parents of their 7-year-old daughter, Pranali.