The Californer - Mayor London Breed Nominates Larry Yee to San Francisco Police Commission

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San Francisco, CA — Mayor London N. Breed today nominated Larry Yee to the San Francisco Police Commission, the seven-member body charged with setting policy for the Police Department and conducting disciplinary hearings when police conduct charges are filed. Yee, who is Chinese-American, is a long-time Chinatown community advocate with decades of experience serving on the boards of multiple community and labor organizations.

"Larry will be a strong voice for San Francisco residents on the San Francisco Police Commission, and I'm proud to nominate him for this important position," said Mayor Breed. "It's critical that all of our diverse communities, including our Chinese community, are represented and have a voice at the table in our City government and policy making at the Commission. I believe that Larry will work to make sure the community is involved and engaged in public safely decisions, and that their concerns are respected and addressed."

"I've lived and worked in San Francisco my whole life, and it would be an honor to serve my fellow San Franciscans residents on the Police Commission," said Larry Yee. "As someone who has worked for many years with the community and labor groups, I think I can help bring people together and help bridge the divide that sometimes occurs between government and city residents. I want to thank Mayor Breed for nominating me, and I look forward to the opportunity to serve on the Police Commission and making San Francisco a better place to work, live and raise a family for all."

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For almost two and a half decades, Larry Yee has devoted himself to serving San Francisco, particularly the Chinatown community in which he grew up. He is the incoming President of Hop Wo Benevolent Association, one of the associations of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also known as the Six Companies. In 1996, he joined the Yee Shew Yan Benevolent Association and since then has served on the boards of multiple community organizations, including the Yee Fung Toy Family Association.

In addition to dedicating his time to multiple community organizations, Yee has experience working with labor organizations as a union officer. For the past twelve years, he has served as the Secretary and Treasurer of Communication Workers of America (CWA) Local 9410. Larry has been a part of numerous rallies and strikes fighting for racial, social, and economic justice. He is also a delegate to San Francisco Labor Council and previously served as the Vice President of the Asian Pacific Labor Alliance.

"I am excited at the nomination of Larry Yee to the Police Commission. Larry has served a diversity of San Francisco communities that he has been a part of for decades. So he's no stranger to service," said Malcom Yeung, San Francisco Airport Commissioner. "This diverse experience gives Larry the perspective to balance the competing and complex demands of policing in San Francisco — the community policing and public safety needs of monolingual immigrant communities, which make up over 40% of our population, with the morale and pragmatic obligation to seek criminal justice reforms that best serve all our communities."

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Yee was born and raised in San Francisco. He grew up living in Chinatown's Ping Yuen Housing Development and attended public school, graduating from Galileo High School. In 1978, Larry started working at AT&T and earned his bachelor's degree from San Francisco State University in Accounting in 1980. Larry spent the next 40 years in telecommunications before retiring in 2018. He and his wife raised three children in the city and sent them all to local public schools.

Yee's nomination to the Police Commission comes at an important time for public safely in San Francisco. In June 2020, Mayor Breed announced a roadmap to fundamentally change the nature of policing in San Francisco and issued a set of policies to address structural inequities. She proposed four priorities to achieve this vision: ending the use of police in response to non-criminal activity; addressing police bias and strengthening accountability; demilitarizing the police; and promoting economic justice. These policies build on the City's ongoing work to meet the standards contained in President Obama's 2015 Task Force on 21st Century Policing. If approved by the Board of Supervisors, Yee will oversee the development and implementation of these critical reforms.

Filed Under: Government, City

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