Lee Appointed S.F. Mayor

San Francisco city administrator Edwin Lee was appointed mayor Tuesday, replacing Gavin Newsom, who was sworn in as California’s lieutenant governor on the same day.

Appointed to his second term as administrator last year by Newsom, Lee developed and oversaw the implementation of the city’s first-ever 10-year capital plan to prioritize infrastructure investment. He also led efforts to reduce the size and cost of city government, according to the mayor’s office.

Before being appointed administrator in 2005, Lee began working for San Francisco in 1989 as the investigator for the city’s first whistle-blower ordinance and has since served as executive director of the Human Rights Commission, director of city purchasing and director of the Department of Public Works.

Prior to working for the city, Lee was an attorney for the San Francisco Asian Law Caucus from 1979 to 1989. Born in Seattle, Lee graduated from Bowdoin College and University of California, Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law.

Lee will serve the year remaining Newsom’s term. The city’s Board of Supervisors picked him as a compromise choice, in part because he has no plans to run for a full term this fall.

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