Supervisor Ed Jew gets into trouble; our Ben Fong-Torres gets into People magazine.
One of the biggest political stories in San Francisco is also one of the saddest especially for Asian Americans.
The subject is Ed Jew , who was elected late last year to the city's Board of Supervisors and is its lone Asian American member. He beat out two strong fellow Asian Americans in the district election, and represents the Sunset District, which includes, among other mini-communities, the so-called Second Chinatown, centered on Clement Street.
The problem is, Jew, who is also one of the Board's most conservative members, is required to live in the district he represents, and, it appears, he does not. And if he doesn't, then he's not qualified to have run for his office, or to occupy it. Investigations by the City Attorney and the District Attorney have resulted in reports that Jew has failed to provide proof that he lives in a house, owned by his father, in the district. Jew's wife and children live out of town, in the suburb of Burlingame, and Jew operates a flower shop in Chinatown. Investigators, checking utility bills and talking with neighbors and mail carriers, believe that he has been living in Burlingame since 2003. (However, they say, Jew used that address for voting in recent years, and stated that he lived there when he filed his candidacy papers last year. That would be a violation of election laws.) Jew has claimed that he splits his time among all three locations. And...