London Breed breaks silence on City Hall corruption two months before tight mayoral election

Here's a breakdown of my investigations, the FBI arrests, and the only time Breed commented on any of it

“You pay to play here. We know that. We’re the best at the game.”

— Former Human Rights Commission staffer Zula Jones to an undercover FBI agent in one call played during her trial in 2017

On Tuesday, Sept. 1, it was all over the mainstream media, from KQED to the San Francisco Standard and Chronicle: Mayor London Breed wants to put an end to City Hall corruption! While these outlets acknowledged the timing was suspicious — just two months before she faces a tough battle to keep her job — not one of them looked back at just how much corruption has gone on under Breed’s nose and how silent she has been on all of it, not only as mayor, but as District 5 supervisor, where she served from January 8, 2013 until July 11, 2018, the last three of those years as president of the board. The most recent City Hall scandals are fresh in most people’s minds, but Breed goes back even further, to a case that rocked San Francisco politics like nothing had before.

In 2015, former state senator Leland Yee pleaded guilty to a felony charge of using his short-lived campaign for California secretary of state as a “racketeering enterprise” to solicit funds from agents who posed as contributors. In his plea agreement, Yee said he conducted the affairs of the campaign “through a pattern of racketeering activity” that took place between October 2012 and March 2014 and netted him $34,600. In a plea agreement, Yee’s one-time consultant and fundraiser, Keith Jackson, a former San Francisco school board president, admitted to the same charge. In a separate racketeering charge, Jackson’s son Brandon and sports agent Marlon Sullivan also pleaded guilty.

All four had been scheduled to go on trial in August, 2015, in the first of several trials stemming from a five-year undercover investigation that led to a wide-ranging corruption indictment by a federal grand jury where two dozen defendants were on trial, including Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, a former gang leader in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Chow was accused of running an established Chinese American community organization, the Ghee Kung Tong, as a racketeering enterprise which Brandon Jackson and Sullivan admitted to taking part in, saying that others were involved in more nefarious activities such as drug dealing, robbery, extortion, illegal gun possession, and murder for hire.

Shrimp Boy’s defense team claimed that a Yee associate, businessman Derf Butler, also funneled “untraceable debit cards for clothing and trips in exchange for advantages on contracts in San Francisco” to a San Francisco City Supervisor. Her name? London Breed.

Former Board of Supervisors president and current San Francisco city attorney David Chiu, who was then a state assembly member, agreed to wear a wire for the FBI in order to record a conversation with Chow. The conflict between Chiu and Chow went back to Chiu pulling city funding for a Chinatown Night Market, after “he was made aware” that Chow had taken over managing it, due to Chow's criminal ties. Chow took out an ad in a Chinese language paper saying that Chiu was like "a corpse eating a vegetable dinner,” which Chiu took as a threat, and therefore had a police detail with him at all times for six months. Chiu could rest easy after a federal jury convicted Chow in 2016 of running the organization as a racketeering enterprise and ordering the murder of its former leader, Allen Leung, in 2006. He was sentenced to life in prison.

‘You pay to play here. We know that. We’re the best at the game’

Then-mayor Ed Lee was also targeted in the investigation, accused of using officials in his administration, including the city’s former Human Rights Commissioner, Zula Jones, to help solicit and launder bribes using straw donors. In 2012, phone calls caught Jones telling an undercover agent posing as a real estate developer, “You pay to play here … We are the best at this game ... better than New York.”

Jones discussed accepting $10,000 from the undercover agent to help Lee pay off his 2011 campaign debt in exchange for favorable treatment, and breaking it into $500 checks to comply with San Francisco’s limits on individual contributions. “He’s not the type to have a debt,” Jones said in one call. “He’s not a real politician. He’s a bureaucrat. He’s a professional.”

The calls also captured Jones bragging that Lee was a return to the old school ways of former mayor Willie Brown, the head of the “City Family,” who handpicked Gavin Newsom, Ed Lee, and London Breed to succeed him, which kept his tentacles around Room 200 and throughout San Francisco’s power structure. “We’re getting our ducks back in a row,” Jones said in another call. “For eight years, we’ve been sort of lost after Willie Brown left. But I told them this isn’t reinventing the wheel. It’s just getting it all back together.” Jones also boasted that she was trained in these ways by Brown, as was Lee. “Willie Brown was just the best mayor. ... He’d just let you loose,” Jones said. “I’m just excited that Ed Lee, who also worked under the Willie Brown administration, is the mayor and knows what to do.”

Jackson was sentenced to six months for each of the two City Hall charges and given credit while completing his federal term. Jones took a plea agreement allowing her to avoid jail time. Lee, who was never charged with a crime, passed away on December 12, 2017, at the age of 65 from coronary artery disease (he once told me during an interview that he had a family history of heart problems).

Keith Jackson

Fast forward to 2019 when I wrote a Marina Times column titled, “It’s time for Mayor Breed to sweep DPW boss to the curb,” after following then Department of Public Works head Mohammed Nuru’s Twitter feed (under the ironic handle MrCleanSF). I noticed Nuru was touting the cleanliness of streets in China, Argentina, and Chile during trips taken in October 2018, snapping photos of himself beside landmarks, partying with high-ranking officials, and washing it all down with expensive bottles of wine.

I immediately emailed SFDPW spokeswoman (and former San Francisco Chronicle City Hall reporter) Rachel Gordon. “I assume these were work related, so I would like to know the dates of the trips, how much the trips cost, and the reason for each trip,” I wrote. Gordon’s response was swift: “Hi Susan. These were not work-related trips. He was on a personal vacation, no government business nor funding involved.”

So how, I wondered, was the public servant in charge of keeping San Francisco’s infamously feces-and-needle-strewn streets clean, able to embark on a nearly month-long “vacation” to three foreign countries? It turns out, the trips were financed by developers hoping to do business with the city. Nuru took “travel, hotel stays and lavish gifts” (like a $2,070 bottle of wine) and met repeatedly with a Chinese billionaire seeking to construct a large mixed-use building in San Francisco.

But back in April of 2019, after Gordon insisted those trips were “personal,” I decided to look into Nuru’s past, which I noted was “littered with two decades of ethical missteps, misappropriated taxpayer funds, lawsuits, and incompetence, courtesy of then-mayor Willie Brown,” who hired Nuru in 2000 as DPW’s deputy director of operations under director Ed Lee (yes, that Ed Lee).

And there it was — the pernicious connection to Brown, the man responsible for promoting numerous cronies to top positions, both literally and behind the scenes. From those hand-picked choices for the three mayors who succeeded him to city heads like Nuru, city administrator Naomi Kelly, and her husband, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission general manager Harlan Kelly Jr., Brown has shaped San Francisco’s politics for decades (I detailed Brown’s influence in my September 2014 Reynolds Rap in the Marina Times, “It’s still Willie Brown’s town: Personal politics runs amuck at City Hall”). When it comes to playing politics, Brown’s protégés learned from the best.

After my first article, the silence from City Hall was deafening.

London Breed’s only comment — ‘Yes, we had an affair’

In June 2019 I wrote another column following a tip I received about a romantic relationship between Breed and Nuru, and how, as mayor, Breed created a department and a job for Nuru’s current girlfriend Sandra Zuniga.

Ten months later Nuru was arrested. Zuniga (who became “Girlfriend #1 in the FBI indictment) pleaded guilty in March 2021 to helping launder the proceeds of Nuru’s bribes and avoided prison time by cooperating with the investigation.

Again, crickets from Breed.

On Feb. 1, 2020, I once again wrote about Breed ignoring the rampant corruption and refusing to fire Nuru, perhaps because they had been romantically linked. Just two weeks later, on Valentine’s Day no less, Breed came clean in a Medium post, admitting she and Nuru had indeed been romantically involved some 20 years ago (though my sources say it was much more recent). She also admitted to taking $5,600 in “gifts” from Nuru to fix an old car. Suddenly, every reporter in town was on it, many claiming they were long aware Breed and Nuru had dated. “It was an open secret at City Hall,” they said. But the public didn’t know, in effect allowing Breed to remain silent for years — and proving the level of coziness at City Hall extends even to the reporters who cover it.

In March of 2020, I wrote about Breed continuing to sweep the corruption of her top officials under the rug. I also disclosed the elicit affair between Harlan Kelly Jr., head of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and his subordinate, Juliet Ellis.

It turns out, Willie Brown officiated Kelly’s wedding, and Mayor Lee appointed both Kelly and his bride Naomi, another Brown acolyte, to executive roles. Between salary and benefits, Harlan Kelly made $472,737, while as city administrator Naomi Kelly made $371,822, for a mind-blowing combined total of $844,559.

In 2014, Harlan Kelly stood by his beleaguered deputy Ellis, despite pending investigations by the San Francisco District Attorney, the city’s Ethics Commission, and the state Fair Political Practices Commission about her role in awarding a $200,000 no-bid contract to Green for All, a nonprofit co-founded by Van Jones, where she served as a paid board member and additionally received $2,000 per month as the organization’s acting executive director. Kelly said her “critical expertise” trumped those pesky ethics issues — but dig a little deeper into that relationship (and some public records made available by an anonymous SFPUC source) and you’ll see Kelly and Ellis took a three-day trip to Chicago together shortly after those scathing reports. In fact, Kelly and Ellis took 44 trips together at a cost of over $130,482 between April 2013 and December 2018, an average of eight trips together per year with an average annual price tag of nearly $24,000, all billed to SFPUC ratepayers.

Cheetos, tequila, and friends with community benefits

On some of those trips, Kelly and Ellis brazenly (or foolishly) rented only one room; on others, adjoining rooms. There’s a trip to Cancun, a room service bill for tequila and Cheetos, and an apparent affinity for the most expensive hotels. In emails, the SFPUC financial department asks for justification on some of the pair’s requests for reimbursement, including why they continually choose the most expensive accommodations. Three months after my article, those travel records were subpoenaed by the FBI.

Again, nothing from Breed.

In July of 2020, I wrote an investigative report called “Friends with Community Benefits” about the blatant pay-to-play scheme at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission disguised as a social impact program, where I made the connection between the Kellys and disgraced Department of Building Inspections expediter Walter Wong. “I have a feeling at some point the FBI will knock on the doors of Harlan Kelly, Juliet Ellis, Dwayne Jones, Chris Gruwell, and others regarding the SFPUC Community Benefits Program, but Kelly may also be sweating the guilty pleas of Wong, which includes an agreement to cooperate with the FBI. It’s no secret that Wong did favors for a lot of city bigshots, and that apparently includes Harlan and Naomi Kelly,” I wrote.

“Numerous workers inside the SFPUC told me not only did Wong do work for the power couple, but ‘Harlan bragged about it.’ According to the Department of Building Inspection, the Kellys pulled three permits on their home located at 1622 11th Avenue in San Francisco between 2011 and 2014. The authorized agents on each of those permits is Best Design Construction. A 2010 court case, W. Wong Construction Co., Inc. v. Watt, mentions that Wong introduced the Watts to Charles Ng of Best Design. Wong even used Ng’s plans to apply for a building permit on their behalf. The fact Best Design worked on the Kelly’s house for three years definitely makes me wonder who got their permits. Then again, it’s just business as usual in San Francisco.”

Five months later, the Kellys’ house was raided by the FBI and Harlan was arrested. He stepped down from the SFPUC. Naomi also stepped down from her job as City Attorney. Juliet Ellis stepped down from her SFPUC job as well.

Not only did London Breed remain silent, she doubled down, appointing City Attorney Dennis Herrera to replace Harlan Kelly as SFPUC general manager and David Chiu to replace Herrera as City Attorney. Harlan Kelly certainly saw benefits to having Herrera on his side — he maxed out his contribution to the 2019 city attorney reelection campaign, despite the fact Herrera was running unopposed.

Herrera, the proverbial fox in the henhouse, has also known about the corruption for decades. When he ran for mayor in 2011, he crowed, “For 10 years, Nuru’s questionable ethics and repeated misappropriation of taxpayer dollars didn’t seem to merit a slap on the wrist from Ed Lee. Now, as mayor, Ed Lee thinks it merits a promotion.” After Lee beat him and he went back to his job as city attorney, Herrera continued ignoring Nuru until the Feds did his job for him.

In an October 2021 column, I asked rhetorically if Herrera was aware of Nuru, how could he not be aware of Kelly and Ellis? According to sources within the Community Benefits program, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, Herrera was indeed aware. “He has an attorney sitting in on all meetings who reports back to him,” said one. “The city attorney has to sign off on everything.”

That same person confirmed, as I reported in July 2020, that Ellis did indeed decide which nonprofits would get money (her “friends with community benefits”), and that SFPUC contractor and close pal Dwayne Jones was her favorite middleman with joint venture board developers receiving big gigs, such as AECOM/Parsons. “Dwayne told them what nonprofit donations would help earn the best scores from Juliet,” the source explained. And, it turns out, those nonprofits were often connected to Jones. 

In meeting minutes I obtained, Jones appears at a AECOM/Parsons joint venture board meeting, held at SFPUC headquarters on Aug. 8, 2018. Jones, who also had a consulting contract with AECOM/Parsons, presents an updated Community Benefits contribution plan, effectively telling his client which nonprofits to pay on behalf of his other client, the SFPUC. One of the beneficiaries is Southeast Consortium for Equitable Development, run by Jones’s wife and business partners, and the payment is withheld pending legal review by the city attorney’s office. The minutes note that the city attorney conducted a review of “all community-based organizations on the FY 2018-19 plan. All organizations were vetted and 501c3 status verified. There were no findings.” On Aug. 25, once Herrera’s office gave the green light, the joint venture board processed the payment and Jones received a $25,000 check at his office on Bayshore Boulevard. 

That article was mentioned in the August 2023 indictment that charged Jones with 59 counts of fraud. Nuru and Kelly are both currently serving their sentences and Jones, sources tell me, is talking, so expect more arrests.

As one fellow City Family member after another was indicted and sent to prison, Breed ignored the news and the aftermaths, yet, just two months before she faces reelection, she wants to shine a light on corruption. The only transparency so far is Breed pretending she didn’t know about it until now.