It’s been a pretty bad couple of weeks for San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
On Tuesday, Breed admitted to being aware that Sheryl Davis, the Breed-appointed head of the city’s Human Rights Commission, had a “very close” relationship with the leader of a nonprofit that received $7.5 million in city money, including $1.5 million that Davis approved directly.
It’s part of a broader scandal with Breed’s “Dream Keeper Initiative,” which was created in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd to address inequities in the city’s Black community. The fund is run by the Human Rights Commission.
Davis resigned on Sept 13, following two bombshell reports about the Commission. The San Francisco Standard reported that Davis was living with James Spingola, executive director of the nonprofit Collective Impact, which received several contracts personally signed off by Davis. On the same day, the San Francisco Chronicle published a story asserting widespread financial mismanagement at the Human Rights Commission.
In a statement last week, Breed said that Dream Keeper funds are “frozen until further notice,” as the city controller leads a full audit into the effort.
It’s not the first time that Breed has come under scrutiny on claims of corruption or cronyism, a popular talking point for her political opponents as the election battle heats up. It can be hard to keep them all straight, so we’ve rounded up a complete timeline of all the scandals since Breed became Mayor in 2017.
February 2020: Breed admitted in a Medium post that, in 2019, she had received a previously-undisclosed $5,600 for a car rental and car repairs from Mohammed Nuru, the former head of San Francisco Public Works. The post came two weeks after Nuru was arrested by the FBI on charges related to bribery and kickbacks he received in office. Breed and Nuru had briefly dated two decades prior, and remained “close personal friends,” according to Breed’s Medium post.
Also February 2020: The San Francisco Examiner published a story alleging that in 2015, during her time on the Board of Supervisors, Breed’s $1,250 Pride parade float was improperly paid for by Nick Bovis, the owner of (since shuttered) restaurant Lefty O’Douls. Bovis was an associate of Nuru’s, and the duo were accused of attempting to bribe an airport commissioner.
June 2020: The FBI charged Sandra Zuniga, head of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services and the city’s Fix-It Program for clean streets, with laundering money for Nuru. Breed promptly fired Zuniga from those positions. Zuniga pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in March 2021.
August 2021: Breed agreed to pay nearly $23,000 in fines to settle alleged ethics violations, including those related to the Nuru scandal and a separate instance in which she was accused of using her status as mayor to pressure then-Governor Jerry Brown to pardon her brother, who was in prison for involuntary manslaughter and armed robbery. Brown did not issue the pardon. At a press conference, Breed took “full responsibility for those mistakes.”
September 2022: An investigation by the Standard found that a Breed staffer had asked Police Commission member Max Carter-Oberstone to sign an undated letter of resignation, which would allow the mayor to terminate him at any time. (Under the city charter, the mayor can appoint some commissioners, but cannot unilaterally fire them.) Carter-Oberstone later alleged that signing the “draft” letter had been a condition of his appointment; an investigation by the Board of Supervisors found that Breed had used the tactic on a number of appointees. Supervisors banned the practice in February 2023.
January 2023: An investigation by the Standard found that the African American Art & Culture Complex, a nonprofit that Breed ran until she got into politics in 2012, had failed to file legally-required transparency and registration documents with the state for several years, despite receiving millions in city funds. Breed has supported the group while in office. The group had received $3 million in contracts from the Dream Keeper Initiative as of 2023, according to the Standard.
February 2024: Susan Murphy, the Breed-appointed chair of the commission which oversees the Bayview’s Southeast Community Facility, was accused of stealing $100,000 in public taxpayer funds by filing fraudulent expense reports. Breed removed Murphy from her post.
September 2024: Dueling investigations from the Standard and the San Francisco Chronicle revealed widespread financial problems at the Dream Keeper Initiative, Breed’s flagship effort to promote cultural and economic development for the Black community. In a statement, the mayor took “full responsibility” for any missteps.