Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan Dies After Being Hit by Vehicle

Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan, an advocate for health care access and a political trailblazer for Asian Americans in the East Bay, died Wednesday afternoon after being hit by a vehicle while walking her dog across the street in the city of Alameda, her staff said.

Chan, 72, suffered a serious head injury and was rushed to Highland Hospital, where doctors were unable to revive her. She was pronounced dead at 2:30 p.m.

In 1994, Chan became the first Asian American to win election to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, representing the 3rd District, which includes the cities of Alameda, San Leandro and sections of East Oakland and Chinatown. The longstanding Democratic politician was elected to the state Assembly in 2000, representing the 16th District, where she served three terms and became that house’s first Asian American majority leader.

In 2010, Chan reclaimed her seat on the county Board of Supervisors, a post she had held ever since.

“During her 30-year career in public service, Supervisor Chan had been a staunch advocate for children, families, the elderly, affordable housing, and health care for the uninsured,” Dave Brown, Chan’s chief of staff, wrote in a statement.

“Many of us who came after her, she helped us and laid the foundation,” said Alice Lai-Bitker, the former president of the board.

Lai-Bitker remembers first meeting Chan as a volunteer — hoping to help Chan in her run for the Oakland school board.

“I went to a campaign party — I couldn’t even get in the door,” said Lai-Bitker, who went on to campaign for Chan during her run for supervisor, and serve as an aide in her office.

“She was a wonderful boss and she had great vision and leadership skills,” said Lai-Bitker. “She was a great role model.”

While in the state Assembly, Chan became chair of the health committee, and wrote bills to limit hospital costs and increase transparency in patient billing.

“Wilma Chan was smart, she was savvy, she was principled and she was pragmatic and that made her extraordinarily effective as a health care champion and on other issues as well,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a health care consumer advocacy group.

Wright points to Chan’s Hospital Fair Pricing Act of 2006, which protected uninsured Californians from high hospital bills and her legislation (vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) to expand health coverage to all children in the state.

And Wright argues that Chan deserves credit for the expansion of health care nationwide: A bill she wrote to increase transparency of health care costs led to the disclosure of expensive medical bills. Those bills were cited in national coverage during the debate over the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

“The tragedy of her loss is you can only imagine how much more she could have given and done,” Wright added.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Alameda, said she had just begun working with Chan on food justice legislation.

“[The bill] would allow every child and low-income person to have the fundamental right to feel like they could go to sleep with the nutrition that they needed,” said Bonta.

“She’s going to be incredibly missed,” Bonta added.

The city of Alameda released a statement, not naming Chan, that detailed a pedestrian-vehicle collision that occurred on Wednesday at around 8 a.m. at the intersection of Shore Line Drive and Grand Street, which has a three-way stop sign. The city had already labeled it a “high crash intersection,” and said safety enhancements had been added last year in an effort to make pedestrians more visible to motorists.

The driver, “an adult female, remained on the scene and is cooperating with the investigation,” the statement read. “At this time, the cause of the collision is yet to be determined.”

Chan is survived by two children and two grandchildren.