Getting to Know: Councilman Amy Ahanotu

City officials sometimes get criticized for being out of touch with the needs of average people.

Not Amy Ahanotu.

The Nigerian born Rohnert Park councilman came to the United States in his 20s and started at the very bottom, cooking, serving and ringing up orders at Taco Bell.

He went on to work for Denny’s, where he was eventually promoted to district manager, then to Redwood Credit Union, where he’s now a branch manager. In 2010, Ahanotu, now 56, was elected to the Rohnert Park City Council, after watching local politics from the sidelines for more than two decades.

“I see Rohnert Park as having a lot of potential and it was an opportunity to shape the city’s policy for future generations,” he told Rohnert Park Patch during a sit down interview at his office.

Ahanotu has a warm and relaxed manner, but he also prides himself in being a leader and has very clear goals for Rohnert Park.

Chief among them is fiscal responsibility, since the city is still facing a $2.3 million budget shortfall.

“I believe in paying a reasonable wage, but not to the point of bankrupting the city,” Ahanotu says. “If people think they’re not getting paid enough, let them go work for other cities. I really believe that we have to constrain our expenses.”

A frequent topic of discussion at City Hall is how to attract new companies to town, something Ahanotu agrees is important for the city’s bottom line. But he says Rohnert Park should be more proactive in keeping existing businesses and offer them information about Small Business Administration loans and other opportunities to expand.

“We have more small businesses than many other cities...they’re the engine of Rohnert Park,” he says.

The father of two children—Onye and Chima, both grown— also feels strongly about maintaining the city’s parks and other recreational facilities.

“We can’t continue to let our parks fall apart,” he says.

(Ahanotu was one of two council members who voted to reopen the M section pool, arguing that the $22,000 was a small price to pay for something many families would enjoy. Joe Callinan was the other supporter of the move.)

“We don’t have to spend $500,000 all at once, but appropriate $50,000 here, $50,000 there,” he says. “I have always believed that if you want to do something, you can find the funds, even if you have to take baby steps to get it done.”

Ahanotu also has big dreams for the former State Farm site, which he wants to see transformed into Rohnert Park’s new downtown. He envisions a combination of small shops, a plaza and regular events to make the site a destination for people getting off the SMART train. He also wants to link it to Civic Plaza via a pedestrian bridge. 

“We need some sort of sustained event that people can identify with, like a concert,” he says. “As is stands now, the Civic Plaza is totally underutilized.”

Finally, Ahanotu says the city should do more to improve its connections with the Sonoma State University campus, including by recruiting interns for various City Hall departments. Another idea is more partnerships with the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, such as sending more SSU students into local classrooms.

“When I get off the freeway in Rohnert Park, I don’t get the sense that there is a college nearby,” Ahatonu says. “What can we do to change that?”

Know someone in Rohnert Park or Cotati who we should profile on our site? Drop Local Editor Karina Ioffee a line at karina@patch.com

Like Rohnert Park-Cotati Patch on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. And sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter. Have an opinion about what’s going on? Share it with a blog.