I think that makes it a clean sweep of the local newscasts for Shah,  who plans to run for City Council next year after he turns 18. He’s also been on Fox news and some BBC radio program.

Shah was at the Fremont Citizens Network get together last night featuring Anu Natarajan. Shah gave his two cents frequently. He lost me at one point when he started talking about a hole that fecal matter comes out of. If memory serves, he was talking some dilapidated section of Mission San Jose High School.

Ishan might be the most polite city council candidate ever. When former council candidate Alan Stirling, wearing overalls and red, white and blue, hi-top sneakers, walked in to the full house last night at the Warm Springs Cabana Club, Shah gave up his seat.

Later he greeted, former mayor “Mr. Morrison.”

The KTVU segment isn’t online yet. Below is a CBS report on him.

http://cbs5.com/video/?id=51228@kpix.dayport.com

First, the Argus wrote about him, then NBC put him on television, now CBS has joined the act.

Anu Natarajan said NBC CBS sent a reporter to last night’s council meeting to interview her and Councilmember Bill Harrison about Shah. The question, she said, “Do you consider him to be a threat?”

Shah emailed this to me today. When I talked to him last week, I asked whether he really had gotten hate mail as he had claimed on his web site. Now he can answer “yes” without hesitation.

Ishan is great. I went over to Mission Coffee after school on Wednesday unsure if his candidacy should even be a story more than a year before the election, but that at least this would be one politician who wouldn’t offer to buy me food.

Sure enough, I arrived to find Ishan sitting at a table with his computer in front of him and a fresh cinnamon roll waiting for me. What could I do? Yum.

As I mention in the story, Ishan knows a lot about Fremont politics for a 16-year-old. But he did get stumped on one easy question: naming Fremont’s five historic districts.

He got Niles, Centerville, Irvington and Mission right away. But he blanked on the last one.

I told him there was a hotel there. But that didn’t register. I told him that nursery there had closed last year, but you can’t expect a 16-year-old to know his nurseries.

Finally, I told him that there was also an elementary school with the same name.

“Gomes?” he guessed.
“No”
“Weibel?”
“No,” I said. “Warm Springs”

He was mad at himself. He insisted that he knew it, but suffered an inopportune “brainfart.”

I believe him.

While I was away, a 16-year-old Fremont boy emailed to say he’ll be running for City Council next year. I’m not printing his name on the blog or in the paper just yet because I want to make sure he’s the real deal and not some attention-starved teen who doesn’t know squat about city government.

If you really want to do more about him, click here for his web site. He already has the endorsement of 14 people, all of whom probably know more SAT words than any member of the Argus staff.