SAN FRANCISCO — Stephen Nakajo was reappointed on Jan. 16 to the San Francisco Fire Commission by Mayor London Breed.
First appointed in 1996 by Mayor Willie Brown, Nakajo served as president of the commission from 2000 to 2004 and again in 2010. He was reappointed in 2004 and in 2008 by Mayor Gavin Newsom and by Mayor Edwin M. Lee in 2012. He served as commission vice president in 2013, 2017 and 2018 and currently serves as the newly elected president of the commission.
Also reappointed were Katherine Feinstein and Tony Rodriguez. Also serving on the commission are Frances Covington and Ken Cleaveland.
The commission’s responsibility is to ensure that the San Francisco Fire Department effectively implements its mission. It meets at City Hall on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month.
Nakajo was the co-founder and executive director of Kimochi Senior Center, which serves the needs of the Japanese American senior community. He was also the co-founder of Nihomachi Street Fair and the organizer in 2017-2018 of the Japantown Business District, and is currently the executive director of the Japantown Task Force.
He was awarded the KGO Profile in Excellence, the KQED Asian American Heritage Award, the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation in 2016, the SPUR (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association) Award in 2017, and the Japanese government’s Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays in 2018. He received his bachelor’s degree in social science and a master’s in social welfare from San Francisco State University.