This sordid, tangled mess has been going on for quite a while, but only recently, as in yesterday, have the words ‘criminal investigation’ been used, which is absolutely gobsmacking when one digs back even only as far as a year to see what would compel that kind of interest. The tease sure sounded juicy.
Ex-leader of Dream Keeper Initiative under criminal investigation, sources say
Sheryl Davis, who ran former Mayor London Breed’s signature program for the city’s Black community, resigned last fall amid allegations of financial misconduct.
Sheryl Davis, the disgraced city official who led San Francisco’s once-in-a-generation effort to invest tens of millions of dollars in Black communities, is under criminal investigation, The Standard has learned.
Davis resigned in September as head of the Human Rights Commission in the wake of allegations of financial misconduct and conflicts of interest involving an executive at a nonprofit that received department funding.
The exact nature of the criminal investigation by the district attorney is not known. However, Davis faces a slew of separate charges from the city attorney’s office, which has accused her of enriching herself through a scheme of bribes and illegal gifts involving public money.
Not to mention that this Sheryl Davis is a close London Breed associate, the former controversial San Francisco mayor who recently was defeated in her run for reelection.
Davis has long been a prominent feature in San Fran’s black community. After the George Floyd riots, Mayor Breed funneled city money to black non-profits and programs under the umbrella of her new ‘Dream Keeper’ program, and handed the reins to Davis to administer.
…Davis joined the Human Rights Commission in 2016 and quickly became an important figure in the city’s efforts to economically bolster Black communities. Her role became more prominent when Mayor London Breed launched the Dream Keeper Initiative in 2021, in response to George Floyd’s murder, as a program that dedicated city money to Black-focused nonprofits and programs. The Dream Keeper Initiative was placed under the command of the Human Rights Commission.
Now that you have the basics, let me see if I can give you a proper accounting of how Ms Davis at long last came to be under criminal investigation.
It’s really extraordinary and it all exploded almost exactly a year ago, during the tail end of the mayor’s race, sadly enough for Breed.
By this time, Sheryl Davis had been the head of San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission. It is an official city department and is tasked with doing all the touchy-feely crap you’d imagine with what had once been a fair amount of money to burn, close to $44M a year. Next year’s 25-26 budget, thanks to belt-tightening (and perhaps a sprinkle of paybacks for administrative malfeseance), is far less at $28.8M.
Rooted in community, the Human Rights Commission works in service of the City’s anti-discrimination laws by protecting civil rights, upholding dignity, and advancing equitable outcomes in San Francisco.
In September of ’24, all hell breaks loose, one thing after another, and they all have to do with one Sheryl Davis.
The San Francisco Chronicle had been doing some journalism and, woof. What they came up with turned out to be just an appetizer.
…Original Story, 2:40 pm: Thursday was a hell of a day at San Francisco City Hall’s Human Rights Commission, which gets plenty of city money for their “service of the City’s anti-discrimination laws to further racial solidarity, equity, and healing.” The commission’s executive director Sheryl Davis was nailed by a Thursday Chronicle exposé that alleged, among other things, a $10,000 Martha’s Vineyard cottage rental paid for by invoices that were split, seemingly to avoid city oversight of department bills larger than $10,000.
“Can you split the invoice?” Davis emailed to a nonprofit CEO who’d rung up that $10,000 tab for intern lodging at a conference. “Half before June 30 and the other half after July 1?”
The ten grand invoice was reportedly for interns (!) in the city’s Dream Keeper program who were attending a conference on *checks notes* Martha’s Vineyard.
…In early June, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s executive director, Sheryl Davis, responded to an email from a local nonprofit director who had sent her a receipt for a $10,274 house rental on Martha’s Vineyard and wanted the city to pay her back.
“Can you split the invoice?” Davis asked Westside Community Services CEO Mary Ann Jones. “Half before June 30 and the other half after July 1?”
The rental for seven nights was intended as a place for interns with Mayor London Breed’s Dream Keeper Initiative to stay as an African American leadership conference was taking place on the Massachusetts island, Davis would later tell the Chronicle.
WOWSAHS
Whatever happened to a cabin in the woods and cooking on a camp stove for ‘interns’? Or the Motel Six?
That was only the day’s news starter. The San Francisco Standard had itself a Davis scoop at the same time.
…Then later Thursday afternoon, the SF Standard reported that same Human Rights Commission executive director Sheryl Davis had signed off on $1.5 million in grants to a nonprofit led by a man she lived with. That would be Collective Impact executive director James Spingola. The two deny having any romantic relationship, but per the Standard, “Davis and Spingola both registered to vote at the same home address in spring 2021.” The Standard adds that “The pair also currently co-own a 2008 Mini Cooper, which is registered to that same address.”
Commit that ‘Collective Impact’ non-profit name to memory and its director, James Spingola, with whom Ms Davis has now been exposed for living with – after at first denying any relationship at all. At the same time, she was writing checks with city money to her housemate’s non-profit.
…While the Standard noted that Davis had directly signed off on $1.5 million in grants to Spingola’s nonprofit, the Human Rights Commission’s Dream Keeper Initiative had granted a total of $7.5 million to his Collective Impact nonprofit.
That very day, Sheryl Davis first takes a leave of absence from the Commission and then abruptly resigns altogether.
Getting the gist of the issues?
It gets better.
This past March, after San Francisco finally decided to start digging through the commission’s and the associated non-profit’s books, another healthy and questionable check emerged.
…Now, just hours later, City Attorney David Chiu has announced disciplinary actions because a different Breed-era City Hall department head got $19,000 in city money for her son’s UCLA grad school tuition, as the Chronicle reports.
The department head whose son got that tuition money was former Human Rights Commission executive director Sheryl Davis, who was notoriously fired in mid-September over using $10,000 in city money for a Martha’s Vineyard house rental. In this case, Chiu says that a scandal-tainted nonprofit that got $27 million in city grants, Collective Impact, gave $19,000 of that in scholarship money to Davis’s son, first-class airfare for Davis to promote her book and podcast, plus another $5,000 for Oakland soul singer Goapele to perform at Davis’s book launch party.
Oh, and Davis was Collective Impact’s executive director before taking the Human Rights Commission job.
“Collective Impact has received more than $27 million in City grants since 2021 to provide support to our City’s most vulnerable,” Chiu said in an official announcement. “Our communities deserve these resources, and we cannot allow public monies to be diverted for personal benefit and self-promotion. All City employees have a responsibility to ensure that public funding is used as intended to deliver high-quality public services.”
…The Chronicle reached Spingola, who said that Davis’s son had simply applied for the nonprofit’s college financial assistance “like everyone else,” and received no preferential treatment.
Collective Impact (run by the boyfriend and recipient of city money courtesy of the girlfriend) (who, prior to working for the city, we now find out was the non-profit’s ExecDir) just happens to cut a check to the girlfriend’s son, ‘like everyone else’ who applied.
WOWSAHS
I mean, the brazen frickin’ nerve.
That was the last straw for City Attorney David Chiu. He immediately moved to cut the Collective gravy train off at the knees. Better late than more millions later, I guess.
City Attorney David Chiu announced today that he initiated debarment proceedings against, and immediately suspended, Collective Impact, preventing the nonprofit from bidding on or receiving new City contracts or grants. Collective Impact received City grant funding to provide programming for vulnerable youth and families in San Francisco, but an ongoing, joint audit and investigation by the City Attorney’s Office and the Controller’s Office revealed that Collective Impact spent City funding on gifts to former Human Right Commission (HRC) Director Sheryl Davis and aided and abetted Davis in violating various conflict.
Collective Impact has paid tens of thousands of dollars to support Davis’ personal business ventures, her travel, and her son’s education. Prior to being HRC Director, Davis was the Executive Director of Collective Impact, and she shares a home and a car with the nonprofit’s current Executive Director, James Spingola.
And the list he trotted out just a few weeks ago of what the lovebirds had managed to swag from the city was pretty impressive as far as personal graft goes.
…Though she left Collective Impact before starting at HRC, Davis continued to sign official documents on behalf of the nonprofit through February 2017, according to the city attorney’s office.
Court filings said that she is still a signatory on Collective Impact’s bank account and that the nonprofit has a corporate credit card in her name to this day.
Chiu also alleges that over a period of five years, Davis and Spingola — who have lived together since 2016 — signed six grant agreements topping $6 million on behalf of the Human Rights Commission and Collective Impact, respectively. During that time, neither disclosed their relationship.
Around the same time, Collective Impact is accused of paying more than $19,000 in graduate school tuition for Davis’ son, $18,400 to support her personal work, including marketing a personal book and podcast, and thousands more to treat her to luxury accommodations and flights.
To pay for a trip Davis and Spingola took to a Martha’s Vineyard conference where she was a keynote speaker, the nonprofit falsely billed expenses to an Educational Pathways grant awarded to Collective Impact through the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, according to the city attorney’s office. The terms of the grant expressly barred spending on conferences and travel.
Attorney Chiu’s actions have led to some distress at Collective Impact in the intervening months, however. It seems without those big, fat city checks coming in, the non-profit is struggling and, as of mid-month, is warning it may well have to close its doors.
That’d be a pity.
…A San Francisco nonprofit accused of bribing a city department head is being forced to consider closure this fall as officials seek to cut off its city funding for five years, its attorneys said.
Collective Impact, a Western Addition-based nonprofit, was suspended from receiving city funding in October after media reports uncovered that its executive director, James Spingola, had been living with the head of San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission, which had awarded it millions of dollars in grants over the previous five years.
…City Attorney David Chiu’s office laid out new details of the alleged corruption in court documents filed Monday, ahead of an administrative hearing next week at which attorneys for Collective Impact plan to argue to restore the nonprofit’s eligibility for city funds. Chiu’s office is seeking to extend the funding ban for five years.
In classic progressive grifter form, none of this has apparently stopped Ms Davis from being a fixture on the San Francisco social and political scene.
And, amazingly enough, new Mayor Dan Lurie is swearing that he’s going to restart the scandal-ridden Dream Keeper program because the new and improved directors pinkie-swore it’d all be good.
Corruption. Favoritism. Misspent funds.
The city last year paused a $120 million program aimed at funding Black community groups in the wake of these scandalous allegations. Nonprofits that provide food, backpacks for children, and mental health support feared closure.
Nearly half a year later, Dream Keeper, an initiative of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, will be restarted, Mayor Daniel Lurie said Friday at a gathering for Black History Month at City Hall.
“The Human Rights Commission has given me their word that a request for proposals will be given out on or before March 21,” he told Black community leaders, referencing a process to select grant recipients. “I want you to know my administration is taking this seriously. Funds allocated to the African American community are critical to the stabilization of our neighborhoods.”
What the heck. It’s only money.
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