Arcadia Mayor Pro Tem David Fu responded to criticisms over the City Council’s lack of action to remove from office or limit the mayoral duties of Eileen Wang, who resigned from the council earlier this month after she admitted that she was a secret agent of the People’s Republic of China.
In an email to HeySoCal.com, he shared his points of view on a range of issues discussed during the council’s last meeting. On Tuesday, council members reassigned the mayor and mayor pro tem positions and started an application process for appointees to serve the rest of Wang’s term through November.
Among the more than 20 people who spoke during the meeting’s public comments segment, former Councilman and Mayor Tom Beck chastised the current council majority for what he said were missteps such as egomania, ineligible residency by Mayor Paul Cheng and Councilman Michael Cao in their respective council districts, the Fu-led censure against Councilwoman Sharon Kwan in August and allegations that the majority “ignored” the Wang controversy.
“I am quite disappointed with Tom Beck,” Fu said via email. “I know he long served this city. That service was not without controversy nor rather obvious error, but it was not for me to judge.
“This latest diatribe is quite disturbing.”
In an email following up his curtailed remarks at Tuesday’s meeting because of a three-minute time limit for public commenters, Beck wrote:
“Your pre-planned speeches for the most part missed the issues your residents raised last night and are concerned about,” Beck said in his email to the council and others, obtained by HeySoCal.com. “This is NOT about our country or about how great Arcadia is or how great the residents are. It’s about YOU! The three of you and (City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto) and (City Attorney Michael Maurer) basically said or inferred there was nothing you could do to prevent Eileen from becoming Mayor when she did. It was said that the Charter and new rules regarding Mayor succession gave you no options to prevent her from becoming Mayor.”
Beck then asked:
“1) Why were you all so effusive about Eileen when you knew all the facts I recited last night and you may have known a lot more disturbing facts,” he said referring to the Wang controversy’s timeline that started in December 2024 through this year.
Beck also asked:
“2) Why didn’t one or all of you take Eileen aside and suggest that now was not the right time for her to be Mayor under these circumstances?
“3) If the City Council had no authority to stop someone from being Mayor why was David Fu allowed to have a hearing on whether (Kwan) should continue to be Mayor and / or be censored?”
Fu pointed to apparently cordial relations his critics have had with Wang and provided a photo with Beck, Kwan, Wang and former Councilwoman April Verlato, who led a recall campaign against Fu that failed to gather required signatures.
“As for his allegations that we did nothing about Eileen Wang and heaped praise upon her, I attach a photograph of Eileen, Tom, April Verlato and Sharon Kwan, apparently taken in better days,” Fu said.
He also referred to Kwan’s request that she and Wang serve as the council’s 2028 Olympics committee, noting the May 6, 2025, meeting “where Sharon Kwan asserts that she and Eileen Wang are the best suited to serve on the Olympic committee, because they are bilingual and because they are women, ‘at this international’ event. This was some six months after the Sun indictment; it appears nothing about Eileen disturbed Sharon Kwan at that point, and she restated this lack of complaint at the March 3 meeting this year.”
Yaoning “Mike” Sun was Wang’s fiance and campaign treasurer who pleaded guilty in October to acting as a clandestine agent of the PRC and received a four-year prison sentence in February. Wang agreed April 1 to plead guilty to a similar charge and faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison.
“If Mr. Beck thinks that I should have known more about Eileen and her conduct when I had served on council for about two weeks in December 2024, I was sworn in on December 4, when the Sun story initially broke, then I would like to know why Mr. Beck felt it was acceptable for him to consort with Eileen whenever this photograph was taken?
“Mr. Beck was on City Council when Eileen was elected in 2022; why did he not do anything about her links to espionage?” Fu questioned. “If he had knowledge of her wrongdoing, did he contact the FBI, the only law enforcement agency to my knowledge charged with investigating our own citizens for espionage?”
According to Fu, “It’s plain that none of us had reason to question Eileen’s loyalty or her service until her indictment and apparent pending plea bargain were unsealed on May 11, 2026. Despite this, for political gain, these people make these false allegations against those of us who work hard for this city, including the city manager and the city attorney.
“I said it before, out loud, and I say it again: Eileen Wang was my colleague and my friend,” Fu wrote in his email. “I saw nothing in her conduct which led me to conclude that she was a danger or an enemy of the U.S.”
He added “that in this country, we are deemed innocent until proven guilty. I believe it’s why our ancestors, or we, came here in the first place, at least in part.
“We do not try people in the court of public opinion, and then use the tools of government power to condemn them,” Fu said. “At least, not in Arcadia. The City Council does not have the power or the authorization to conduct investigations into our own citizens for espionage.”
He accused “Sharon Kwan, April Verlato, and Tom Beck as well,” of having cost Arcadia “untold hundreds of thousands of dollars in administrative costs, attorney fees and outside counsel fees. I will not join their club and add to the taxpayer burden of this city by engaging in illegal misconduct in office, and exposing the city to untold actions and civil liability.”
Fu also took offense to a portion of Beck’s post-meeting email missive about the council’s Asian ethnicity.
“What is your legacy on the City Council?” Beck asked in his email to the council. “First, would be the ugly and unnecessary fight you picked with Sharon. It was an embarrassment for the City. Sharon is not perfect and has her flaws like us all. A gentleman would have handled it differently. Second, how the Eileen Wang problem was NOT dealt with but ignored until our City became national news. Third, how the Eileen Wang story has tainted ALL ASIAN ELECTED OFFICIALS. My news feed has sent me several stories of this nature. It’s so sad how this has affected so many Asians.”
Fu accused Beck of furthering “damaging stereotypes” about politicians from Asian backgrounds.
“Ironically, this month is AAPI Heritage Month,” Fu said. “Marking this occasion, many observers have referenced a particularly dark chapter of U.S. history, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The CEA resulted from damaging and unwarranted stereotypes of Chinese immigrants, promulgated by leading racists, especially political leaders and journalists, of the time.
“It seems these damaging stereotypes persist,” Fu alleged.
“‘Tom states, ‘… the Eileen Wang story has tainted ALL ASIAN ELECTED OFFICIALS.’ According to whom, Mr. Beck? Clearly that’s a rhetorical question, because Mr. Beck has answered it for us. This is what Mr. Beck believes.
“I don’t think that Richard Nixon or Rod Blagojevich tainted all Caucasian elected officials; why does Eileen Wang warrant that distinction?” Fu continued.
“Mr. Beck and Jeffrey Epstein are both apparently Caucasian men; does that make Mr. Beck a pedophile? Not in my mind. I never previously characterized Mr. Beck as a racist, but I fear that I must re-evaluate that characterization.
“This is the second time that Mr. Beck has made statements which were clearly framed in racist dogma,” according to Fu. “At the time of the censure hearing against Sharon Kwan, I recall he read an email purportedly by Mickey Segal, another former councilman, who he references in this email.
Fu recalled that in the email Beck claimed Segal “made a statement that ‘this never happened until we had an all Asian city council,’ or words to that effect. Mr. Segal himself did not make any such oral statement to the Council, and I do not recall seeing the email myself, so I hope that this statement was not falsely attributed to Mr. Segal,” Fu said.
“This is very disappointing,” he added. “Despite that 144 years have passed since the Chinese Exclusion Acts, it appears that some people still maintain that Chinese immigrants labor under a heightened burden of scrutiny. We have to prove ourselves more, because people like Tom Beck think so.
“And I assume that this applies to all immigrants, not just Chinese, although I will venture the guess, only people of color,” Fu said. “Ironically, I was born in this country. Probably like Mr. Beck, I am not an immigrant. But I am clearly no less branded as an outsider, strange, undeserving and under-classed, at least in the minds of people like Mr. Beck.
“I am comforted with the knowledge that people like Tom are in the extreme minority in Arcadia,” Fu concluded. “But I think that regardless of their numerical obscurity, we must stand up and call out this kind of outrageous behavior when it presents itself. I find it disgusting and having no place in our public discourse, or in our civic governance.”
Cao and Cheng did not respond to requests for comment.
Wang released a statement through attorneys following her resignation that in part said Sun “led her astray,” and “she apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life. … She will continue to find other ways to fulfill her longstanding commitment to serve Arcadia and the public.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, between 2020 and 2022, Wang and her fiance worked at a news website that published propaganda at the direction of PRC government officials. She was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022.