Leland Cheung

Leland Cheung
Cambridge City Councillor
In office 2009 – December 2017
Personal details
Born	c. 1978 (age 46–47)
Political party	Democratic Party
Children	1
Education	Stanford University (BS, BA, MS) Harvard University (MPA) MIT (MBA)
Website	Official website (archive)

Leland Cheung (born c. 1978)[1] is a former City Councillor in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2] He served from 2009-2017.[3]

Education and career

Cheung was first elected to the Cambridge City Council in 2009 while pursuing a Masters in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and an MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to returning to graduate school, Cheung earned a BS in Physics, BA in Economics and MS in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford University. Following graduation, Cheung worked as a Senior Associate at Masthead Partners, a Cambridge-based venture capital firm focusing on digital media, mobile, and internet infrastructure.[2]

From 2000–2005, Cheung served as Chief Information Officer at Space Adventures in Arlington, VA,[4] the only company to have successfully launched private explorers to space.[5] Cheung ran an unsuccessful campaign as the Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in 2005.[6] Cheung lost a campaign in the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 2014.[7] He had been endorsed by The Boston Globe.[8] On September 8, 2016, Cheung lost the Democratic primary for the Massachusetts State Senate in the Second Middlesex district.[9] Cheung announced he was not running for reelection in a statement released August 1, 2017.[10]

As a City Councillor, he advocated for open data, Net Zero Zoning, composting and recycling programs. Cheung was a vocal critic of Harvard University and MIT laying off some workers and cutting hours of others.[11] As City Councillor, he was an early supporter of the Harvard divestment from fossil fuel movement.[12] Additionally, he showed his support for the Responsible Investment at Harvard when they campaigned to end Harvard's management of Argentina Timber Plantations.[13]

His top priorities included shifting the increased burden of property taxes to contractors and developers, completing the green line extension, and implementing universal pre-K. He also supports lifting the charter school cap and overhauling education reform by increasing the overall budget, as Massachusetts ranks 47th in spending on education as a percentage of the total budget.[14] He also proposed anticipating the policy issues of the future, addressing driverless cars' impact on transportation, the gig economy's impact on income inequality, and Airbnb's impact on the housing market.

References

1. "Leland Cheung". Telegram & Gazette. 2014-08-26. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
2. Cambridge, City of. "Leland Cheung's Biography - City Council - City of Cambridge, Massachusetts". www.cambridgema.gov. Archived from the original on 2016-05-25. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
3. "That's All Folks! – Featured Items on the Dec 18, 2017 Cambridge City Council Agenda". Cambridge Civic Journal Forum. 2017-12-18. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
4. "Leland Cheung". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2016-06-04.^[self-published source?]
5. "Space Adventures". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
6. Laris, Michael (2005-11-03). "This Time, A Choice For Voters". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2016-08-31.
7. "2014 Results For Massachusetts Democratic Convention". masslive.com. 15 June 2014. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
8. "Leland Cheung for lieutenant governor". The Boston Globe. September 4, 2014.
9. "Leland Cheung for State Senate". Leland Cheung for State Senate. Retrieved 2016-06-04.
10. "Councilor Cheung releases statement on why he's not seeking re-election". Wicked Local Cambridge. Retrieved 7 April 2018.
11. Mena, Elijah L. (September 3, 2010). "Layoffs due to recession stopped after June". The Tech.
12. Slattery, Gram (September 2, 2014). "A Semester with Divest". Harvard Political Review.
13. Lorch, Kristina D. (April 14, 2014). "Students Rally Against Harvard's Management of Timber Plantations in Argentina". The Harvard Crimson.
14. Gustafson, Chris (December 20, 2012). "Public School Funding in Massachusetts: Where We Are, What Has Changed, and How We Compare to Other States". Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.