Women get the votes in cities; Mayors say females' success in politics shouldn't be news.

• Position: NEWS

Byline: Shaun Sutner

When 28-year-old Lisa A. Wong was elected mayor of Fitchburg last week by huge margins in nearly every ward, she didn't become the youngest chief executive of the northern Worcester County city, nor was she even the first woman in the city to win the post.

But Ms. Wong, who will be the first Asian-American mayor of the city, was a key part of a notable trend in this year's round of municipal elections in Central Massachusetts: women who are running cities in the region.

"It is absolutely about time for more women to step up to the plate," said Ms. Wong, a former director of the Fitchburg Redevelopment Authority.

The new wave of women in politics here comes as women have made dramatic advances recently at the state and national levels. Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, earlier this year became the first female president of the Massachusetts state Senate; in 2006, U.S. Rep. Nancy P. Pelosi was elected the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, is a leading presidential contender.

In Worcester, longtime city councilor and former council vice chairman Konstantina B. Lukes, who took over the mayor's chair for most of this year after former mayor Timothy P. Murray was elected lieutenant governor, last Tuesday became the first popularly elected female

mayor of the state's second-largest city.

Mrs. Lukes' runner-up, District 5 Councilor Frederick C. Rushton, is seeking a recount in the wake of her 105-vote victory. But if her win holds it would be a historic feat.

Meanwhile, in Marlboro, incumbent Mayor Nancy E. Stevens cruised to her second two-year term by margins just as landslide-like as Ms. Wong's.

Mrs. Lukes, Mrs. Stevens and Ms. Wong join female mayors in Greenfield, Northampton and Salem.

Ms. Wong, who has undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics from Boston University and became head of the redevelopment authority when she was 26, said that what is remarkable about her situation is not her ethnicity, generation or gender. Rather, she said, it is her qualifications and managerial and executive skills.

"For women, the expertise was always there, the community experience has always been there, and certainly, in my platform, the financial and economic experience was always there," she said.

Ms. Wong is the second woman to lead Fitchburg. Mary H. Whitney became the city's first female mayor in 1998. William G. Flynn was 25, three years younger than Ms...