A straight shooter. Tough. Candid. Super committed to young people. Those were some of the words that friends and colleagues used to describe Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan.
News of Chan’s death stunned the Bay Area, where she forged a reputation as a trailblazer, resolute advocate for children and the voiceless, and a progressive politician who loyally represented her constituents. The 72-year-old Stanford graduate died Wednesday after she was hit by a car while walking her dog in Alameda’s South Shore.
As the daughter of parents who came to the U.S. from abroad, she was an inspiration as she rose to become the first Asian American woman elected to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and serve as the Assembly’s majority leader.
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it,” Chan acknowledged in a biographical video posted to her office’s website. “I just met so many people who said, ‘Why don’t you run for office?’ … Sometimes you don’t know when you start where it’s going to lead you.”
Three decades after launching her political career, Chan has clearly left her mark.
“There are not too many local elected officials or any that were as candid and straightforward as Wilma was,” said Don Perata, a former East Bay politician who like Chan served on the board of supervisors and in the Assembly. “She’d tell you what’s on her mind and if she wasn’t interested or willing to negotiate. And she was always well prepared — she’s really smart. You just don’t run into that very often.”
“She was super committed to the young people — especially young women and young minority women who needed representation and support,” recalled Oakland Councilmember Noel Gallo, who worked with Chan on the Oakland school board in the early 1990s.
Chan was first elected to the board of supervisors in 1994. Six years later, she was elected to the Assembly.
“She was so tough — she could be so determined. You just felt it,” said Joe Nation, who served in the Assembly with Chan. “There were a couple occasions where she would make it clear where she was on an issue. You knew there was no way to budge her.”
But she was never brash, Nation said, adding that her assertiveness stemmed from “incredible integrity.”
After Chan termed out of the Assembly in 2006, she ran against Loni Hancock two years later for a state Senate seat but lost.
For the next four years she sat on the California Medical Assistance Commission board before launching another run for a seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in 2010. She won and ever since represented Alameda, San Leandro, parts of Oakland, and the unincorporated communities of San Lorenzo, Hayward Acres and a portion of Ashland.
She has remained committed to children’s issues and health care, and in 2013 she brokered a deal to transfer San Leandro Hospital to the Alameda Health System from Sutter to keep it from closing.
As of Thursday afternoon, Alameda police had not yet released details about what happened in the moments leading up to the fatal accident just after 8 a.m. at Grand Street and Shore Line Drive. The intersection is cited as a top tier “high injury corridor” for pedestrians, according to documents that are part of the city’s Vision Zero plan for improving traffic conditions.
Born in Boston, Chan earned a degree in history from Wellesley College, then a master of arts in education policy from Stanford.
Chan wrote in a Stanford University alum testimonial, “I always felt marginalized as a young girl and daughter of immigrants growing up in the 1950s in Boston, but I was fortunate to have had a wonderful public education that opened my mind, heart and fighting spirit to many possibilities.”
Chan recalled at various times how her history of education study shaped her views and goals.
“I will always remember watching tapes of the civil rights movement in one of my classes and seeing my younger classmates who had not lived through it, as I did, marvel at the battles that took place against the segregation of schools in the South,” she wrote. “Our History of Education class reminded us of the constant struggle of new immigrants trying to make their way in an America that was not always welcoming.”
In her video, she recounts how “it’s valuable to know how people made decisions before and what issues happened during periods of time. … I was always interested in society and how people can live a great life.”
According to the California State Archives, Chan was a program coordinator for an organization called Effective Parenting Information for Children before she was elected to the Oakland school board in 1990.
In the Assembly, she committed to children’s issues, health care and jobs, introducing legislation that included a ban on toxic flame retardants, a $100 million expansion of state preschool programs and policies protecting uninsured children, according to state archives.
Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, whose district overlaps with Chan’s in representing Chinatown and other portions of Oakland, said Chan had a “fierce” commitment to helping children and families and tackled issues such as health care access, mental health care and homelessness.
Fortunato Bas recalled that in recent discussions between city and county officials about paying for the infrastructure of a waterfront ballpark and village for the Oakland A’s, Chan’s main focus was to assure the development would contain enough affordable housing.
Fortunato Bas said she sought Chan’s political advice when she considered running for City Council.
“She was a straight shooter,” Fortunato Bas said. “She is just someone who has an incredible reputation as a fighter. And as a public servant — she’s known for being a fierce and effective leader.”
