Allan Wai-Ket Fung (born February 25, 1970) is an American attorney, politician and Republican Party member who has been mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island since 2009. He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 election.
Elected mayor in 2008, Fung became the first mayor of Chinese ancestry in Rhode Island. Fung was previously a state prosecutor and attorney on legislative and regulatory affairs before serving on the Cranston City Council as a citywide councilman.
He lost the gubernatorial race in Rhode Island during 2014 to Gina Raimondo.
Video Allan Fung
Early and Personal life
Allan W. Fung (Cantonese: ???), born on February 25, 1970 at Providence Lying-In Hospital (now known as Women & Infants Hospital), Fung is the eldest of Kwong Wen and Tan Ping's three children. Crown colony Chinese immigrants from British Hong Kong, his family settled in Rhode Island in 1969, and ran a small business on Cranston Street and Gansett Avenue, Cranston, RI.
Fung graduated from Classical High School in Providence, RI in 1988. He earned a B.A. from Rhode Island College in 1992. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1995. He received the Classical High School Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009.
Fung met Barbara Ann Fenton, a physical therapist, at the 2012 Republican National Convention. They married in summer 2016. Fung converted to Catholicism before the wedding.
Maps Allan Fung
Political career
Prior to his municipal leadership career, from 1999 to 2001, Fung served as a prosecutor, acting as Special Assistant, for the Rhode Island Attorney General. Fung served from 2001 to 2009 as the government relations counsel for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife. In 2003, he was elected to the Cranston, RI City Council. In 2004, Fung was honored as a Rhode Island Bar Foundation Fellow. He is also a Providence Business News 40 Under Forty honoree. Fung was chairman of the Rhode Island Governor's Insurance Council from 2005 to 2008.
A Republican, he was elected mayor in November 2008, beating Democrat Cynthia M. Fogarty by 63% to 37%. He is the first Chinese American elected as mayor in the state. He succeeded Michael Napolitano, who defeated him for the position in the 2006 election by 79 votes. Fung was re-elected in 2010 against Richard R. Tomlins by 76% to 24% and in 2012 against only write-in opponents by 97% to 3%. Fung is a council member for the Republican National Committee's Asian Pacific American Advisory Council.
In 2013, at the direction of former Cranston police captain Stephen Antonucci, hundreds of cars were issued parking tickets in two wards of the city of Cranston represented by two city council members who did not vote in favor of a new police contract, as political punishment. Further, Fung communicated to Antonucci in September 2014 that he would consider bringing him back from leave but this was kept quiet until November after Fung's losing gubernatorial bid.
Fung won re-election to a fourth term as Cranston mayor in November 2016, by a landslide ratio of 2 to 1.
Under Allan Fung's leadership, Cranston went from a city in dire financial problems to one of the Top 50 Cities in America by 24/7 Wall Street for three straight years.
Cranston was also named one of the "Best Places to Raise a Child" in the country in 2017.
Gubernatorial campaigns
2014
In November 2013, Fung announced his candidacy for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 election. He received several high-profile Republican endorsements during the campaign, including former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Almond, former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld. On September 9, 2014, Fung defeated Ken Block in the Republican primary, with a 55% majority. Soon thereafter, the Republican Governors Association President also endorsed him. Democrat Gina Raimondo would go on to win the three-way contest by a 4 point margin.
2018
In October 2017, Fung announced he would again seek the governorship.
References
External links
- City of Cranston's website
- Campaign website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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