We’ve got another City Hall department head embroiled in scandal over alleged unauthorized moonlighting and no-bid contracts to previous clients for extravagant conferences, and Department on the Status of Women director Kimberly Ellis has been put on leave.
Another high-level London Breed appointee is on the outs at SF City Hall under the Daniel Lurie administration, but this time it’s not because of political differences. The Chronicle had been poking around “city contracting records, campaign finance filings and legally mandated financial disclosures” regarding the SF Department on the Status of Women and its director Kimberly Ellis. And the Chron found that Ellis had taken a $10,000 consulting payment under the table from a political action committee (PAC), and that committees she had conflicts of interest with were rewarded with pricey no-bid contracts and opulent taxpayer-funded conferences.
Once alerted that the Chronicle was sniffing around, the Lurie administration put Ellis on leave. "Our administration has the strongest expectations for city employees,” Lurie spokesperson Han Zou told the Chronicle, adding that she “has been placed on leave pending investigation."
Kimberly Ellis is seen above, along with a description she uses across her social media accounts declaring that she was “named the most powerful unelected person in California Democratic politics by the Sacramento Bee.” That indicates some ambition. Breed appointed her to a to a $230,000-a-year job leading the Department on the Status of Women, a department that traditionally fights human trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Though oddly, that department has a very splashy website promoting Kimberly Ellis, which is not an SF.gov website.
And the Chronicle’s investigations found she directed nearly $1 million in taxpayer money in no-bid contracts to groups she’d worked for or consulted for in the past. And much of this money was spent on rather pricey events, as we saw in previous Breed-era scandals involving $10,000 Martha’s Vineyard retreats, or limo rides, Tahoe trips, and $200 gift bags.
Ellis was appointed by Breed in 2020, before the above photo was taken. At the time, Ellis was the executive director of Emerge California, whose goal is to promote women candidates for office. She also ran a consulting firm called Southern Belle Strategies, a firm that did pretty well once Ellis was appointed to her Department on the Status of Women position.
Once appointed by Breed, Ellis's department put out flattering videos about (guess who) Mayor London Breed. The above video was produced with your tax dollars by She the People, whose “fiscal sponsor,” according to the Chronicle, is the PAC that gave Ellis the $10,000 payment, Power PAC. Ellis directed a separate $128,000 contract to Power PAC, and Power PAC also made another $20,000 in payments in 2023 to Southern Belle Strategies. Nice two-way arrangement!
The Department on the Status of Women also put on the Shift Happens Women’s Policy Summit, which in 2023 cost $500,000, and in 2024 cost nearly $700,000. The 2024 contract to run the event was awarded to a nonprofit called Ignite National, who happened to pay Southern Belle Strategies at least $10,000 before Ellis got the City Hall job in 2020.
How did Ignite National spend your taxpayer money at that conference? As the Chronicle explains, the bill “included $100,000 for catering, $35,000 for swag and $24,000 for speaker fees and gifts. The department ultimately paid Ignite $675,000 for the event, or nearly $1,000 per attendee.”
Our two-year deficit is projected at $728 million - $200m next year & $528m the following year.
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) December 16, 2022
This deficit is significant. While we can manage it and maintain core priorities like economic recovery, public safety, homelessness, and mental health, it won't be easy.
In both year’s events, the City of San Francisco was running deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Image: Kimberly Ellis via Facebook
