Name: James Fang, former BART director and member of powerful publishing family, dies at 58
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James Fang, former BART director and member of powerful publishing family, dies at 58

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James Fang, a former president of the BART Board of Directors and the San Francisco Examiner and a member of a once-powerful San Francisco political and publishing family, died Friday. He was 58.His death was confirmed by a nephew and family spokesman, Sean Fang of San Mateo. Fang died of natural causes, according to a family statement.“My uncle was an amazing man,” Sean Fang said Sunday. “Even through any adversity that he faced, no matter what it may be, he always managed to keep his composure and compassion.”The Fang family at one time owned the San Francisco Independent, AsianWeek and the Examiner, which it received from Hearst Corp. along with a three-year, $66 million subsidy to operate it.The deal settled a complicated antitrust action that allowed Hearst to purchase The Chronicle in 2000. Fang served as president of the Examiner from 2000 until 2004, when it was sold to a publisher in Denver.Fang was described by The Chronicle as “the first Asian American ever to win a Bay Area-wide post” when he was elected to the BART board in 1990. He was re-elected to six four-year terms before he was defeated by Nick Josefowitz in 2014.During his tenure, the transit system expanded in reach, innovation and earthquake safety. According to a biography issued by the family, Fang oversaw renovation and expansion projects totaling $12 billion.“We were saddened to hear of the passing of former BART Director James Fang,” BART spokesman Jim Allison told The Chronicle in a statement Saturday. “We (at) BART will always remember him for his fierce dedication to public service.”His term of service was clouded when it was revealed he had faked his resume during his campaign for the BART board in 1988. Fang had neither an advanced degree from UC Berkeley nor a law degree from UC Hastings College of Law, as was stated in a Chinese language campaign brochure. He had enrolled at UC Hastings but never completed his law degree.Fang later said he had never seen the resume with the false information and apologized for “poor judgment.”The Fangs, at that time, held considerable political power built on a small neighborhood publishing empire started by John Ta Chuan Fang, who emigrated from Taiwan along with his wife Florence, in the 1960s.Their first publication was “Chinatown Handy Guide,” an English language booklet providing tourist assistance. This led to a small printing business and a job as publisher of the Young China Daily, a newspaper supported by the Taiwanese government.In 1979, the Fangs founded AsianWeek, and over time accumulated eight weekly papers on the Peninsula. In 1987 they bought the San Francisco Independent, which was delivered three times a week, had a circulation of 379,000 and was said to be the largest non-daily newspaper in the United States.This brought political clout, and John Fang veered into politics, often working through political operative Jack Davis, who ran both of Willie Brown’s San Francisco mayoral bids.Davis said the Fangs were Republican but held such sway that James Fang was given an internship in the Congressional office of Nancy Pelosi. This was the extent of his political experience when he ran for the BART board. John Fang came to Davis and asked him to polish up his son for the campaign.“I transformed him from a disheveled kid who wore sweaters and a mop top into a candidate in a tailor-made suit with his hair cut by a stylist,” said Davis, who also created Fang’s title of financial controller of the family business. Davis ran Fang on the strength of fiscal experience and responsibility.Davis was rewarded for this victory when he was named a groomsman at Fang’s 1994 wedding to Daphne Huang, daughter of the mayor of Shanghai. They settled into a home in the Inner Richmond.Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.Related StoriesAfter John Fang’s death from cancer in 1992, his widow, Florence, became the matriarch of the family, with the eldest, James, assuming more responsibility.As president and publisher of AsianWeek, he oversaw an increase in circulation from 5,000 to 38,000 during a tenure from 1995 to 2010. During that same time he served as deputy publisher of the Independent, in separate editions published for San Francisco and San Mateo County.But over time the Fang newspaper properties suffered from the same declining readership and advertising that battered the larger industry. The Independent and AsianWeek both ceased publication more than a decade ago. The Examiner has changed hands again.Fang served on the Republican County Central Committee. When he was voted off the BART board, in 2014, he was said to be the last Republican holding elective office in the city.Fang also chaired the San Francisco-Shanghai Sister City Committee and served as an Asian trade emissary under various mayors.Fang was born and raised in San Francisco, where he lived his entire life, and was a graduate of Lowell High and UC Berkeley, according to his biography.He is survived by his mother, Florence Fang of Hillsborough; wife, Daphne Huang of San Francisco; brother, Ted Fang of Hillsborough; nephew, Sean Fang of San Mateo; and niece, Allison Fang of San Mateo.Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter:Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Area’s largest water districts.

James Fang, a former president of the BART Board of Directors and the San Francisco Examiner and a member of a once-powerful San Francisco political and publishing family, died Friday. He was 58.His death was confirmed by a nephew and family spokesman, Sean Fang of San Mateo. Fang died of natural causes, according to a family statement.“My uncle was an amazing man,” Sean Fang said Sunday. “Even through any adversity that he faced, no matter what it may be, he always managed to keep his composure and compassion.”The Fang family at one time owned the San Francisco Independent, AsianWeek and...

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James Fang, former BART director and member of powerful publishing family, dies at 58

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