Ann Zadeh is Fort Worth’s newest city council member, but she’s no stranger to city policy
MADAME PLANNER | New Fort Worth Councilwoman Ann Zadeh talks to a voter on the campaign trail.
Ann Zadeh’s first night as a councilwoman — replacing the city’s first and so far only openly gay councilmember Joel Burns — was no honeymoon.
Elected in June, Fort Worth’s new councilwoman for District 9 was sworn in July 19 before a packed crowd celebrating her inauguration. After a ceremonious swearing-in, supporters cleared the room. For a lot of people, the swearing-in was when the fun ended.
But for Councilwoman Zadeh, the party just started.
Up for consideration that night by the council was a divisive rezoning case concerning 100-plus acres surrounding Fort Worth’s historic Stockyards. It pitted longtime Stockyards stalwarts against one another.
Requesting the zoning change was Holt Hickman, owner of the largest amount of property in the Stockyards. Against it was former city Councilman Steve Murrin, considered to be the honorary mayor of the Stockyards.
Murrin and other opponents were concerned about the pace at which the proposal was considered and that the property would damage the historic property.
After hearing testimonies and absorbing the complexities and legalese of the zoning case, Zadeh cast the lone “no” vote against the zoning change.
While it may have been a tough issue for her first vote, Zadeh said reaching her conclusion was easy.
Trained as a city and urban planner, Zadeh was a mayoral appointee — under former Mayor Mike Moncief and current Mayor Betsy Price — to the city’s powerful planning and zoning commission, of which she was also a chairwoman. She was clearly no stranger to local issues.
“My friends have always come to me about city issues,” she said. But while her friends still flock to her with questions — and compliments — Zadeh now also must answer the questions of District 9’s nearly 100,000 constituents.
The 20-year Fort Worth resident was raised in a free-spirited family in Northern California, where she attended a Quaker boarding school. That upbringing instilled a sense of equity and commitment to community. The Quaker environment also introduced her to the LGBT population.
“I don’t remember a time not knowing LGBT people,” Zadeh said.
The environmental enthusiast transferred in her junior year to the University of California, Santa Cruz, another hotbed of LGBT life, and received her undergraduate degree in environmental studies, policy and planning. She was registering for courses during her junior year when she met Jaffar Zadeh, who would eventually become her brother-in-law. As she talked about her goals after graduating, Jaffar Zadeh found his interest piqued, and he introduced her to his brother, Jim, a then-recent graduate of SMU’s Dedman School of Law.
At the time, Ann Zadeh planned to attend law school and become a land use lawyer. “I thought it was what I was supposed to do,” she said.
But ultimately the plan to attend law school fizzled. She found she was simply “more passionate about city planning.”
The relationship with Jim Zadeh, however, progressed. The two dated long-distance from May 1988 to July 1990, when they married, right out of college. They immediately moved to Fort Worth and have since had two children.
Ann Zadeh’s commitment to family and a community volunteering did not stop her from graduating in 1992 with a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the
University of Texas at Arlington. While she would take the occasional consulting gig and maintained her planner’s certification over 16 years, raising two children, volunteering and maintaining a home life did not allow her to carry a full-time workload.
She knew she would return to work at some point, but “work” did not mean serving in elected office. At least, that’s what she thought.
Ann Zadeh said that “elected official” was not a role she ever intended to take. But after state Sen. Wendy Davis vacated her seat to pursue the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, rumors swirled that Burns, who succeeded Davis as Fort Worth’s District 9 representative, would run to replace her in the Texas Senate.
But Burns, who gained national attention with his emotional speech to the council about being bullied, ultimately declined to run for the state Legislature. Instead, he resigned his council seat earlier this year to attend graduate school at Harvard.
With the next regular District 9 election more than a year away, city officials called a special election to fill the vacancy. That’s when Ann Zadeh, whose time on the planning commission had ended due to term limitations, began getting inundated with text messages and phone calls to run.
“I had absolutely no aspiration to do it,” she said. “Even when people suggested it in the past, I said I wasn’t seeking the limelight. I said it to people over and over.”
Ann Zadeh said she was busy with her family and her volunteer commitments, and that she just really loved the intricacies of urban planning.
David Henderson, president of Fairness Fort Worth, said he was impressed with Ann Zadeh from the beginning of her campaign.
“Ann realized early that if elected she would represent a sizable LGBT constituency. She came to numerous community events, not to talk so much as to listen,” he said.
Those events included Fairness Fort Worth’s candidate forum. While the group does not endorse candidates, he said Ann Zadeh listened to the concerns FFW members expressed — and she is still listening.
Henderson lauded her commitment to appointing qualified LGBT citizens on city boards and commissions.
Jumping from meeting to meeting with stakeholder groups, the new councilwoman for District 9 is also preparing for the next election in May, when she’ll be running for her full first term while still serving in her role as councilwoman.
Thankfully, she said, her new schedule has made her more efficient in time management, a skill she will need while juggling her duties as an elected official with the job of trying to remain an elected official.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 10, 2014.