Three on Redistricting Panel

Marily Mondejar, president of the Filipina Women's Network and Al Perez, president of the Filipino American Arts Exposition at the Oakland Raiders Filipino Heritage Game

Pays to Have an Asian Mayor: After the SF Department of Elections shutout Asian Pacific Americans from the crucial SF Redistricting Task Force, Mayor Ed Lee made it up last Friday by appointing Myong Leigh, SF Unified School District Deputy Superintendent, and Marily Mondejar, Filipina Women’s Network president. The nine-member panel oversees the equitable redistribution of residents for the city’s 11 supervisor districts after the 2010 US Census. The outcome could be supervisor districts that could increase or decrease APA representation, comprising more than one-third of SF residents. The task force will need to consider past political gerrymandering like the dilution 10-years ago shifting APA Portola residents into Supervisor David Campos’ heavily Latino District 9 (Mission) from the emerging APA District 10 (Bayview/Visitacion Valley) represented by Malia Cohen or the heavily APA District 11 (Ingleside/Outer Mission) seat held by John Avalos. In its three appointments last June, the SF Board of Supervisors selected Jenny Lam of Chinese for Affirmative Action to the panel that will determine political boundaries for the next ten years…

RUN ED RUN?

A weekly look at prognostications and prevarications on the Mayor’s intentions

COMPARING EXPERIENCE: Meanwhile, after a religious mission in Alaska, Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs SF chapter president James Yu observed that “[Mayor Lee’s] years of experience will [make] him a front runner. If he can’t get his [City Administrator] job back, he may have to run to be mayor.” Yu observed that Lee’s 20 years as city department director, City Administrator and more than half year as mayor is competitive with Leland Yee’s extensive 24-year resume on the School Board, Board of Supervisors and State Legislature…Yu is leading APAPA’s second SF mayoral forum at 3 pm, Sunday, July 17 at Imperial Garden Restaurant, 2626 San Bruno Street. BART Director and AsianWeek.com publisher James Fang is scheduled to moderate the forum which will include dinner (www.apapa.org/events)…

HERRERA TWEAKS YEE: In his June 4 mayoral kickoff, City Attorney and mayoral candidate Dennis Herrera, derided recent Yee stances. “Fighting Rush Limbaugh and defending shark fin soup might make good copy. But we have more pressing challenges,” said Herrera in what were otherwise positive remarks at the Western Addition with backers like Commissioner on the Aging Richard Ow at his side. …RUSH AND SHARKS: Last January, Yee drew hate mail and threats for starting up a petition drive against conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh for his “classless” mocking of China President Hu Jintao’s speech in a faux Chinese accent. And in recent months, Yee has criticized Assemblyman Paul Fong’s legislation and public campaigns to ban shark fin as overreaching and culturally insensitive….TENOR OF FALL CAMPAIGN: This first Herrera shot across the Yee bow might preview the tenor of SF’s first ever competitive ranked choice voting election for mayor. On one hand, Herrera did not explicitly name Yee who apparently did not retort the city attorney’s remarks in at least the mainstream media. That could indicate that Herrera and Yee are eyeing each other’s supporters for their second and third ranked votes. Hence, the candidates do not want to risk alienating the other’s voters in a bloody negative exchange in a tight race that has both as among the front runners…

Asian Art Museum

THERE HERREEEE…. Never mind corpses unexpectedly excavated at USF as reported in another daily column. It’s only worth noting if you dig ‘em up and years later funky things happen. Instead I’d like to proffer the superstitious: the Asian Art Museum rests on what might be a cursed site a la Poltergeist. Starting with the late 1990s uncovering of 97 Gold Rush era corpses (supposedly blessed with a multi-faith reburial ceremony) and legal and costly wrangling over removing Piazzoni murals, Director Emily Sano opened a new museum in 2003 that was marred by first day protests of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And then last year, JP Morgan Chase nearly drove the occupant of the former Main Library to near bankruptcy. In January, Mayor Gavin Newsom backed a new $99 million loan with Chase forgiving $21 million without a massive museum garage sale. City Attorney Dennis Herrera last year had threatened to sue after saying that JP Morgan Chase bank had given the Asian Art Museum “bad advice” over $120 million in renovation debt before Curator Jay Xu’s arrival in 2008. Is there a jinx here?…

LEGAL “HO” FAMILY: Attorney and AsianWeek alum Julie Soo, following her family tradition of naming candidates, anointed District Attorney George Gascon with the Chinese name “Ha Gong Keung”which stands for “Successful fortitude.” Blessed with the name after being sworn in last January, Gascon shares his new Chinese surname “Ho” with former DA and now California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Public Defender Jeff Adachi… Julie’s late father Stephen gave “Ha Kum Lai” or “intricate beauty” to Harris while Adachi’s name became “Ha Dai Hay” or “great leader”…

KILL DISCO DUCK: The Windy City was the scene of the first ever anti-disco riot in 1979 after the Chicago White Sox hosted the destruction of old fashioned vinyl disco records… If ever California goes retro for disco, you might stir the crusading passions of two 1980 Carl Sandburg High School student body candidates who ran on their own anti-disco platform. “It was the last time I ever outranked him,” said Dave Jones, former president of the suburban Chicago school. The California Insurance Commissioner’s running mate and VP was none other than Controller John Chiang. The often short-listed gubernatorial candidate recently cut California legislator pay for not submitting a budget on time…

MAGNOLIA 8: Coincidence that community pioneer – the late Supervisor Gordon Lau (the first APA supervisor elected in SF) and a founder of the S.F.-Shanghai Sister City Committee – won the Magnolia Award from Shanghai for bridging the cities of San Francisco and Shanghai while his wife Mary “Peppy” Lau harks from the Magnolia state of Mississippi…Mary now is blessed as grandmother for the eighth time as her daughter Carolyn and son-in-law William welcome Marissa Grace on June 28…

MISS ME?: Email Samson Wong at potsticker@prodigy.net.