Where's Dwayne Jones?

Friend with Community Benefits conspicuously absent from corruption trial of former SFPUC boss Harlan Kelly

As the trial of Harlan Kelly Jr., former general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), plods along, several big names — Juliet Ellis, Dennis Herrera, and Dwayne Jones — have been conspicuously absent. I’ll have more on Ellis in my next Gotham by the Bay (she is, perhaps, the most important character in this twisted tale of Cheetos and tequila, corruption, and contractors). We’ll also take a deeper look at new SFPUC boss Herrera’s complicity in the plot, which spans his two decades as San Francisco’s city attorney, and continues in his role as Kelly’s mayoral-appointed replacement. Today, however, we will be delving into Dwayne Jones, friend of Kelly and Ellis, and favorite middleman of Ellis when it came to doling out Community Benefits as Kelly’s chief strategy officer and assistant general manager of external affairs. 

The topic of “scoring” came up during the first week of the trial, which means the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California isn’t interested simply in Kelly’s bout of diarrhea during a family vacation to China in the spring of 2016, or the “gondola ride and personalized safari tour his family enjoyed on their trip to Hong Kong and Macao,” all paid for and arranged by the now infamous contractor and permit expediter Walter Wong. Scoring figured prominently in my June 2020 exposé on the SFPUC’s Community Benefits Program which involves Joint Venture Boards, a group of representatives from two different contractors who team up on an SFPUC project, trying to win multimillion-dollar bids by impressing the powers that be (Kelly and Ellis at the time) with their generosity to favored nonprofit organizations. 

The SFPUC says they “invite contractors to contribute” and have a hands-off approach, but emails I obtained in 2020, mostly originating from Ellis and her staff and copied to Kelly, show a clear relationship between Joint Venture Boards and staff at the SFPUC rising to the highest level. A textbook example is Julie Labonte, former director of the SFPUC’s $4.8 billion Water System Improvement Program. In 2018, AECOM appointed Labonte senior vice-president and senior program manager within its Design and Consulting Services group’s Program and Construction Management business where she became AECOM’s advisor for the AECOM-Parsons Joint Venture Board (how convenient). 

On Feb. 26, 2019, David Gray, then acting director of Community Benefits (who said in his LinkedIn bio that he “administered $17 million in community investments” during his six-month tenure), reached out to former SFPUC colleague Labonte. “Thank you for the opportunity to present to your JV board this morning,” Gray says. “We appreciate the JV’s support and will touch base as we near the program launch date. Also, let me know if you’d like to chat about the disbursement plan for the remaining $360,000 after the fiscal year.” Labonte responds, “Following your presentation [our JV Board members] unanimously voted to financially support the program starting with two $50K contributions . . . the JV Board is also supportive of our current plan to invest a total of $360K in the program. Finally, it was decided that all contributions will be made directly to the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation (as opposed to contributing through a fiscal agent such as the Southeast Consortium for Equitable Partnership).” 

What is the Southeast Consortium for Equitable Partnership? One of several companies involved in Community Benefits run by Dwayne Jones. 

TIES TO GAVIN NEWSOM, ED LEE, AND MOHAMMED NURU

Prior to my Community Benefits exposé and a subsequent report by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit in December 2020, media mentions of Jones were few and far between, but his escapades occurred under the same four mayors as those of former San Francisco Department of Public Works director Mohammed Nuru, who is currently serving seven years in prison for fraud. Also, like Nuru, it all started for Jones with former mayor and current power broker Willie Brown, the godfather, if you will, of the San Francisco City Family.

In 2004, then-mayor Gavin Newsom announced the Communities of Opportunity program, intended to help families living in San Francisco’s public housing. Newsom ponied up $370,000 in city funds to cover the cost of Jones, a top mayoral deputy and friend (Newsom officiated at his wedding) to oversee the program. But after two years and nearly $4 million, the eight programs operated by a dozen nonprofits had little to show for it. Instead, the money was spent frivolously, going back into the pockets of Jones and his allies, until it shuttered.

In 2013, an investigation into bid rigging at the San Francisco Housing Authority involving former Executive Director Henry Alvarez focused on possible co-conspirators (including Willie Brown). According to a report by then-City Attorney Louise Renne’s office, Alvarez manipulated the competitive process to steer contracts to specific favored individuals. Jones — who served as a Housing Authority commissioner under Alvarez — was one of them, using inside information from Alvarez to lower his original bid and get the job.

That same year, a witness came forward claiming collusion between interim Mayor Ed Lee’s campaign and an independent committee that included cash payments and the promise of future jobs for 34 “mostly unemployed men recruited in the Bayview” to promote Lee’s campaign. The witness said he received $150 in cash and a check, which he later provided a copy of. The check came from RDJ Enterprises — a company owned by Jones. 

The witness was originally to appear at an earlier press conference for Lee’s rival Leland Yee (who in 2015 pleaded guilty to charges related to the infamous “Shrimp Boy” case) but backed out, apparently with good reason. According to Yee, a group of men arrived at his office in vans looking for the witness, “behaving aggressively” and saying they “intended to prevent the witness from speaking to preserve the honor of Jones.” 

In a phone interview, Jones admitted to a reporter with The Epoch Times that he knew about the men arriving at Yee’s office during the time the witness was scheduled to appear but claimed “he did not think their presence would be intimidating” and “they just came to see what was going on.”

In March 2017, Jones appeared with Nuru at a hearing regarding the proposed Recology rate increase. His role? Ratepayer advocate. But on the website ratepayeradvocatesf.org, Jones and his colleagues at RDJ Enterprises did little to advocate for customers, sugarcoating the increase of $5.70 a month for an “average single-family home” by leaving out increases over the next three years, and the fact that, without rebates, proposed charges would increase by an average of 23 percent the first year. In the end, Recology got most of what they wanted from the Refuse Rate Board, which at the time included City Controller Ben Rosenfield, along with Nuru and Jones pal Harlan Kelly and City Administrator Naomi Kelly — who also happens to be Harlan’s wife. 

Even more troubling is the tangled City Family web woven by Nuru as DPW’s director, which gave Jones the ratepayer advocate contract while, according to the FBI, Nuru was being bribed by Recology Group Government & Community Relations Manager Paul Giusti to push the rate increase through with the Refuse Rate Board. Meanwhile, Jones was also paid by the SFPUC, which votes on refuse rates, to run Community Benefits funds through various nonprofits, including those connected to Jones and his associates at RDJ Enterprises, which included his wife.

ETHICAL MISSTEPS = MILLIONS IN CONTRACTS

Despite his connection to Kelly, Ellis, and Nuru through SFPUC Community Benefits and Recology ratepayer hike scandals, Jones is still getting millions of dollars in contracts. His biggest is the SFPUC where he has a Community Benefits Program consulting contract that runs from August 2011 to September 2026. The contract was originally for $1.3 million, but Jones has charged the SFPUC $3.7 million to date. Jones also has five other SFPUC contracts or subcontracts totaling $410,000, for which he has billed $672,240. Additionally, he has $101,815 in pending purchase orders related to his construction services contract for the SFPUC’s Headworks Facility, led by one of those now infamous Joint Venture Boards.

The San Francisco Port Commission has also been very good to Jones. His first work for the agency was a $77,000 contract for public outreach in 2017. His company RDJ Enterprises inked a second deal that same year for community relations related to the Seawall Resiliency Project. Right before the Port Commission unanimously awarded the $40 million, 10-year deal to their handpicked team, President Willie Adams said, “Dwayne, I love you.” It was an odd moment of blatant cronyism, even by San Francisco’s infamous standards. 

The original fee for Jones’s work on the seawall project was $198,039; in a 2019 amendment, it was raised to $278,421 and, as of late 2021, it was running over at $398,362 — more than double the initial amount. 

In 2019, RDJ Enterprises secured a $75,000 as-needed grant for consulting services, and another $317,894 contract for “environmental consulting” related to a youth employment program. It seems Port Director Elaine Forbes and her commission are all in on Jones: All but one of his contracts is still open, in some cases for many years to come. 

Jones also had contracts with SFO for “concessions analysis” and a “community outreach” deal, as well as a contract with the city administrator for $95,000 dated July 2020 (the same month my Community Benefits exposé came out) through June 2021. When Jones entered his contract with the city administrator, Naomi Kelly, was his boss. After Naomi stepped down following her husband’s arrest, his new boss (appointed by Mayor London Breed) became Carmen Chu, who re-upped Jones’s contract after it expired. According to SF OpenData, Jones and Southeast Consortium for Equitable Partnership have received $1.5 million from the city administrator’s office. 

So, what does Jones do with all that money? Someone who worked closely with Jones claims he “drives a Bentley around the East Bay [where he resides] after he was told by Harlan Kelly not to bring it to San Francisco.” He also moves cash around his various organizations, from which he donates to political campaigns that presumably benefit him in some way. His political action committee, Californians for a Diverse and Effective Government (run from the same office as Southeast Consortium for Equitable Partnership) disclosed a $11,000 contribution to “Stop the Recall of Faauuga Moliga” while RDJ Enterprises donated another $21,000. That $32,000 was noted as “major funding” in advertising literature for Moliga, one of the three board of education members recalled last year. 

The same filing lists attorney James R. Sutton as treasurer for Californians for a Diverse and Effective Government. Sutton, a seasoned player in San Francisco politics, handled campaign finances for two independent expenditure committees that raised millions in “soft money” for Willie Brown’s 1999 mayoral reelection campaign.

To date, Jones and his firms have received at least 14 contracts and have been paid $4,525,994 by various agencies, with total contracts valued at more than $6 million. Interestingly, Jones never billed a dime against his contract with Nuru to serve as Recology’s ratepayer advocate. “Dwayne doesn’t do anything for free,” one insider, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said. “Did Recology pay him off to help Nuru push through their illegal rate increases?”

NO QUESTIONS ASKED

At a hearing held Dec. 22, 2020, SFPUC commissioner Tim Paulson asked about Jones, his nonprofits, and the involvement with Community Benefits. Commission President Sophie Maxwell, a longtime City Family member, can be heard on the tape saying “F—k you” to Paulson. Just two days after that hearing, an NBC Bay Area investigative report by Michael Bott, Jaxon Van Derbeken and Jeremy Carroll found the SFPUC paid Jones over $7 million in Community Benefit consulting fees, along with millions more in Community Benefits payments from SFPUC contractors to nonprofits connected to Jones and his friends and family, which in some cases then made payments back to Jones’s consulting firm RDJ. The SFPUC was said to have cut Jones’s contracts in the wake of that report, but city records show that Jones and RDJ still have contracts with the SFPUC, the Port Commission, and the city administrator. 

Then there’s the millions Jones and his organizations have received from the Community Benefits Program because of his incredibly cozy relationships with Harlan Kelly and Juliet Ellis. At one point, Jones even had an office at SFPUC headquarters so he could be close to Ellis (something Kelly denied until I produced the office chart). According to another colleague, Jones was Ellis’s favorite middleman: “Dwayne told the contractors what nonprofit donations would help earn the best scores from Juliet, then Juliet would score them accordingly.” Of course, Jones and his organizations were frequent recipients of those donations. Clearly, when it comes to Friends with Community Benefits, Dwayne Jones was the bestie.