Mayor London Breed directed the City Attorney’s Office - led by past Nuru critic Dennis Herrera - and the Controller’s Office to launch a joint investigation into contracts at Public Works, San Francisco International Airport, and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, where Nuru served as the board chairman.īut Jon Golinger, a political observer who teaches election law at Golden Gate University, is concerned with the executive power over those positions, or what will be done with their findings. Nuru and others in the department wielded more power than other officials and have withstood cries of abuse around homeless encampment sweeps, which Mayor London Breed denies the city has done despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, that trash people’s only belongings. Public Works manages the city’s infrastructure and has no commission or oversight body.
Haney also announced on Tuesday plans for a charter amendment for November to split street cleaning responsibilities from Public Works and to restructure the department. “We need to shine a lot of sunlight and bring in outside investigators to both restore the public trust and root out corruption.” “This is clearly something broken beyond the actions of a single person and we should be looking at those broader systems,” Haney told SF Weekly. The supervisors specifically want to see a detailed review and recommendations about contract procedures, evaluate powers of city department heads, as well as the city’s whistleblower program for improvements including preventing retaliation toward employees reporting misbehavior. After calling for the need for an independent investigation, supervisors Matt Haney, Gordon Mar, Hillary Ronen and Dean Preston began the process last week to hire a Robert Mueller-like special investigator.
ZULA JONES FREE
A city contractor, identified by NBC Bay Area as former Public Works employee Balmore Hernandez, also allegedly bribed Nuru with a tractor and did cheap or free work on the director’s vacation home while the Examiner revealed Bovis’ charity put money for needy kids toward lavishing Public Works. The 75-page FBI complaint pads the charge with a pattern of corruption, including a billionaire developer in China providing Nuru with an opulent trip and $2,000 bottle of wine to help with permitting for a project at 555 Fulton St. Nuru and restaurateur Nick Bovis are charged with one count of wire fraud for the alleged attempted bribery of an airport commissioner so Bovis could obtain a coveted lease. Nuru faces up to 25 years in prison and resigned from his position on Monday.
The FBI arrested Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru twice in late January, once for alleged schemes to sway city contracts and the second for reneging on a deal to cooperate and keep quiet. For the second time in six years, San Francisco is mired in a federal corruption case that jeopardizes public trust in local institutions.
0 kommentar(er)
