Leaders of powerful S.F. Chinatown business group threaten to quit

The powerful Chinatown business group that hosts San Francisco’s iconic Chinese New Year Parade is in turmoil, with more than a dozen board members threatening to quit unless one of the organization’s influential leaders is ousted. 

Thirteen board membersof the Chinese Chamber of Commerce demanded Tuesday that former President Donald Luu be permanently removed as a director, referencing a June lawsuit from three employees and separate claims of assault and sexual harassment that a fourth worker, Judy Lee, has made through her lawyer. 

Luu stepped down as president in recent weeks but remains on the board of directors of the chamber, which has a total of 37 people on two boards.

In a letter to chamber executives, a copy of which was reviewed by the Chronicle, the protesting board members indicated they held Luu responsible for the four employees’ complaints, including those made in the June lawsuit, which accuses Lee of placing an unauthorized recording device in the chamber offices.

Board members said Luu, one of the most prominent and well-connected figures in San Francisco’s large Chinese American community, “may have helped set these problems in motion.” The board members accused Luu of “putting his own interests ahead of the Chamber’s and betraying the trust placed in him.” 

The letter indicates that internal conflict at the historic Chinatown business group could imperil the Chinese New Year Parade, one of San Francisco’s most popular annual traditions that regularly draws hundreds of thousands of spectators. Board members in their letter said the four employees’ “serious complaints” about “grave matters” had put the chamber’s ability to hold the parade — the largest such event outside Asia — “at real risk.”

“Right now, four Chamber employees have brought serious complaints against the Chamber: a lawsuit by three of them for invasion of privacy and a separate written claim by the fourth describing a hostile and unsafe workplace, with claims of sexual harassment, assault, and being held against their will,” the letter said.

Robert Chiang, the first vice president of the chamber, who employees said is acting as interim president, did not respond to requests for comment. 

Luu denied the allegations in a statement sent by his spokesperson, Scott Rubin. He said he was pursuing his own lawsuit against Lee “to protect myself against these inaccurate claims.”

“Earlier this month, I made the difficult decision to resign from my position as president of the board of the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce so that I could focus on my family and not allow an employee’s false allegations against me to distract from the essential work of the Chamber,” Luu said. 

Rubin shared a copy of a defamation lawsuit, which Luu’s attorney, Jaynry Mak, said had been submitted for online filing, though it did not appear as of Tuesday in the San Francisco Superior Court’s public online database. 

The document Rubin provided said Luu suffered “severe emotional distress and public humiliation” as a result of Lee’s allegations. It stated that Luu paid a substantial sum of money to Lee as part of a confidential settlement agreement “under imminent threat of reputational ruin,” and that Lee subsequently violated the confidentiality agreement. Lee’s lawyer declined to comment and said she had not been served with a lawsuit.

The chamber, which was founded in 1917, is responsible for some of Chinatown’s most important events, including the annual parade, the Miss Chinatown USA Pageant and the Chinese New Year flower fair.

The member-based organization also advocates for the needs of Chinatown merchants and residents. Rose Pak, a legendary San Francisco power broker who died in 2016, used to be a leader of the chamber, and Luu is one of her proteges.

Lee’s lawyer, Kathleen Alparce, said in a Monday statement that Lee had “over a decade of service and loyalty” to the chamber and the Chinese American community. Lee was the first woman and youngest person to serve as vice president of the chamber, a role she assumed in 2024. She was hired in April 2025 as the chamber’s program director and sits on the city commission that oversees the Department of Building Inspection.

Alparce said in the statement that Lee had “submitted a formal complaint” against the chamber over what she described as “despicable and egregious” incidents of sexual harassment, a hostile work environment and other issues. Alparce did not detail the allegations in the statement and declined to comment further, citing “pending legal matters.”

Lee spoke about her complaints “numerous times” to chamber leaders, but they “took no action to stop the abuse,” Alparce said in her statement.

“Instead of recognizing or acknowledging Ms. Lee as a victim, the Chinese Chamber and its leadership chose to villainize Ms. Lee such that Ms. Lee had to take her personal safety and well-being into her own hands,” Alparce said. “She believed in good faith that she had to protect herself from the ongoing misconduct and retaliation to save her employment and reputation, and to prevent further harm to herself and possibly others.”

Alparce’s statement came after the three other chamber employees alleged in their June 5 lawsuit that Lee violated their privacy by placing an unauthorized recording device in the chamber offices, which they found on April 10.

On April 25, the employees notified the chamber’s management and human resources committee and formally demanded a response, according to their lawsuit. But the employees  alleged that the chamber “negligently failed to conduct a prompt investigation, failed to perform a physical and technical sweep of the premises and failed to implement interim safeguards to protect employee privacy.”

The lawsuit also said the chamber “ratified” Lee’s “unlawful conduct.”

The three employees said they had a “reasonable expectation of privacy in their workplace environment,” and that the unauthorized recording device was a privacy violation under California law. California criminalizes intentionally recording confidential communications without the consent of all parties involved.

The plaintiffs said they suffered “severe emotional distress, anxiety, loss of dignity and a compromised sense of safety” as a result of the chamber’s “continuous failure to secure the workplace, investigate the surveillance and protect its employees.”

The three employees also alleged that the chamber allowed Lee to continue approaching them at work and provided “no written guidance on how to safely handle these interactions.” 

When approached by the Chronicle for comment on the lawsuit, two of the three employees declined to comment. The third could not be reached.

Alparce, Lee’s attorney, told the Chronicle that Lee is aware of the suit and denies any wrongdoing. She noted that Lee was not a defendant in that lawsuit and said she will participate as needed in the litigation.

While not directly responding to the three employees’ lawsuit, Alparce said in her written statement Monday that Lee was “forced to endure years of unwelcome advances and retaliatory behavior,” that chamber leaders took “no action to stop the abuse” and that Lee “had to take her personal safety and well-being into her own hands.”

In a June 15 letter to chamber leadership, Alparce said Lee had been placed on administrative leave “pending the results of an alleged belated internal investigation.”

“This is not only bad faith but provides a further example of the retaliation Ms. Lee has been forced to endure,” Alparce said, asserting that the chamber’s internal probe would not be objective and would be used as “a pretext” to fire Lee.

Tuesday’s letter from board members demanded that the board’s human resources committee provide all four employees with “a fair way to resolve these matters through a neutral mediator.” The letter asked chamber leaders to convene an emergency joint meeting of its two boards by July 8.