Harrison Says He's Ready for Mayoral Seat

Bill Harrison has always dreamed of being the mayor of Fremont

On Wednesday, Fremont voters helped Harrison move closer to achieving that dream.

While results have yet to be finalized, Harrison has received the most votes in the mayoral race. Harrison has a 1,964-lead over his closest opponent, Steve Cho.

Deciding to run for mayor was an easy one for Harrison, who grew up in Fremont and is a product of the Fremont Unified School District.

“Some people say I’ve been running for [mayor] my whole life,” Harrison said. “I’ve always wanted to, growing up in Fremont.”

Harrison said he's looking forward to the future and ready to get to work.

He noted he plans to work with other city leaders and staff to build Fremont's downtown area, Warm Springs region and to strengthen the city's economic base in order to build up its services to the community.

Harrison, a councilman for six years, said he even had conversations with late former mayor Bob Wasserman about becoming his successor before he passed away.

And after months of campaigning, Harrison said he’s glad to fulfill that obligation to the late Wasserman.

“I’m very happy with the results. I’m happy with the campaign that we ran. We had a great group of volunteers who devoted a lot of time and energy,” Harrison said. “I feel vindicated for them, too. It shows our message was received, for most part, throughout the city.”

Cho has yet to return Patch’s calls, but the former councilman told The Fremont Argus that he’s not ready to concede.

Still, Harrison said he feels comfortable about his lead.  

“It’s [Cho’s] decision to do what he wanted to do,” Harrison said. “The numbers didn’t change from the [first] waves. … I don’t plan on them changing any time soon.”

Harrison added he did get calls from two other competitors – Vice Mayor Anu Natarajan and challenger Aziz Akbari – and they expressed interest in working together to move the city forward.

That was the sentiment Natarajan expressed Thursday afternoon, despite being dissatisfied in her defeat.

“Bill will do his best and we’ll move forward,” she said.

While she was disappointed in placing third in the race, she said she was pleased with the efforts of her supporters.

“We had a solid team doing great work with great enthusiasm. We ran a splendid campaign,” Natarajan said. “I have no regrets, no second thoughts, about the campaign itself, in terms of what we did and how we did it.”

Natarajan, who has served on the City Council for almost eight years, said she doesn’t have plans to run in the future at this time but said she will continue to serve the city.

“I’m very disappointed about where we landed and [we’ll] analyze what happened,” Natarajan said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m on the City Council. I still want to do the best for Fremont.”

Patch plans to do follow-up reports on the mayoral race as results become finalized. Check back on Fremont Patch for those updates.

Results of Fremont's Mayoral Race

Candidate

No. of Votes

Percent of Total

Bill Harrison

16174

35.28

Steve Cho

14210

31.00

Anu Natarajan

11820

25.78

Aziz Akbari

2530

5.52

Linda Susoev

1021

2.23

Write-in

86

0.19

For more election related news, click here.

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