A Determined Ramesh Cherivirala Runs Hard for FBISD Trustee Position 1

By Jawahar Malhotra

SUGAR LAND: Ramesh Cherivirala has been a man on a mission ever since he announced his candidacy for Fort Bend ISD Trustee Position 1 in mid-February and he has been burning up the hours in each day reaching out to the public. This past Sunday, April 27, he was late coming to his own campaign supporter’s reception at the Udipi Café as he was running from one meeting to another. “This is my sixth event so far today”, he said with a smile as he entered, looking not the worse for it. But characteristically, Cherivirala enjoys making contact with people, so he took all this in stride.

Naren Patel, who has previously run for Fort Bend County Treasurer position in the Republican Party primary in 2006 and is a community activist, spoke to the audience of about 30 people about the tremendous penetration into local Ft. Bend County politics by the Indo-American community, pointing to the positions that Sonal Bhuchar as FBISD Trustee and Harish Jajoo as City Councilman, both of whom were in attendance, among others, have had. “There are two important places for people to be involved in civic programs – the School Board and Homeowner’s Associations”, he said, “and Ramesh has both”.

Harish Jajoo remembered how his first run for council in 1994 was “a leap of faith” but “we had the community support and my family behind me”. He ran against an incumbent but didn’t win by 1,200 votes, but he made a lot of friends. “Ramesh has a lot of energy, even when he isn’t in his comfort zone and he needs our support whether he wins or not”, Jajoo said, urging everyone to get their friends out to vote. “Bad people are elected by good people who don’t vote”, he added.

Sonal Bhuchar chimed in on the importance of voting early, as these votes give a measure of interest in the election and the candidates. Having been on the school board before, she said that $500 million budget that they oversaw for the facilities that educate 70,000 students in a 171 square mile area was an important position to run for.

Cherivirala has three other opponents for Position 1 and has looked at all the statistics that could influence the outcome of the vote. In the past elections, of the 200,000 voters in Ft Bend, only 8,000 actually make it to the polls and of that, only 350 were Indian Americans. “The combination of our community’s wealth and voting power could be formidable”, he said, “but we all need to exercise our right to vote”.

Cherivirala sees every vote as being important as the outcome is based on the numbers, not on a percentage. He sees his experience having worked on the Ft Bend School Boosters Clubs and being on the Boards of several Indo-American organizations (he is a past president of the India Culture Center and a present president of the Indo American Charity Foundation) as being important to his candidacy since none of his opponents have that experience. He also has a great deal of experience in managing money due to his work in the insurance industry.

Cherivirala and his supporters handed out yard signs and other postcards to those who attended and urged them to vote early at the 18 locations across the county. The election is scheduled for Saturday, May 10. (Another Indo-American candidate, K.P. George is also running for FBISD Trustee Position 5 in the same election.)