Huja serving his first term in Charlottesville.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Charlottesville, Virginia mayor Satyendra Huja was on the tarmac at Charlottesville Albemarle Airport to greet the arrival of Air Force One and President Barack Obama, who arrived with French President Francois Hollande by his side.
Obama and Hollande visited the Virginian town on Monday, February 10, en route to visit the historic home of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.
Huja later told reporters that he told Obama, quite simply, “Glad you are here with some friends, I hope you will come with more friends again.” He then greeted Hollande with the French salutation “Enchante,” leading Hollande to believe that Huja spoke the language fluently.
Huja is in the third year of his first term as the mayor of Charlottesville. He was Director of Strategic Planning for the City of Charlottesville from 1998 to 2004, and before that, was the Director of Planning and Community Development for the City of Charlottesville for 25 years. He has also taught courses on urban planning at the University of Virginia, which is something of a social center for Charlottesville.
Charlottesville is perhaps best known for the University, which Jefferson founded in 1819, just ten years after completing his tenure as the third President of the United States and about 60 years after graduating from The College of William & Mary, just two hours away in Williamsburg.
Huja, who is originally from Kohat, Punjab, went to high school at Uttarkhand’s Birla Vidya Mandir before coming to the US in 1960 for studies at Cornell University. He ended up transferring to Robert Wesleyan College in New York and earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology, switching from engineering at the former institution. He has lived in Charlottesville for the past 41 years.
As the mayor, he is responsible for a jurisdiction of roughly 46,000 citizens in the city of Charlottesville itself, and about 100,000 total in the great Charlottesville area.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com