Board President Aaron Peskin has called for an investigation into a city department following allegations about the Dream Keeper Initiative, a flagship project of San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s that has fallen under scrutiny in recent months.
On Thursday, The Standard published a story revealing that the initiative’s top decision maker, Human Rights Commission executive director Sheryl Davis, approved $1.5 million in contracts to a nonprofit executive with whom she shared a house.
Davis is on leave as of Thursday, according to the mayor’s office. The mayor will appoint an interim leader for the Human Rights Commission.
The Standard’s investigation found that Davis signed off on contracts for the nonprofit Collective Impact, run by James Spingola, without notifying City Hall about her relationship. In addition to sharing a home address, Davis co-owns a car with Spingola. The arrangement appears to run afoul of city rules around disclosing personal relationships with recipients of city funding.
Davis did not respond to a request for comment about her leave.
Peskin, a candidate in the November mayor’s race, isn’t the only one to call for an investigation. On Thursday, mayoral candidate and former Supervisor Mark Farrell called for Breed to fire Davis and for a federal investigation into the Dream Keeper Initiative and the mayor’s role in the program.
In July 2020, Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Shamann Walton and other city leaders proposed redirecting city funds from law enforcement to support economic and cultural development in San Francisco’s Black communities. In February 2021 introduced a more detailed plan, dubbing it the Dream Keeper Initiative and calling for a $60 million annual investment. In total, city leaders have budgeted roughly $300 million for the program.
In recent months, however, the initiative has been dogged by questions of transparency and oversight of how funds are used. Human Rights Commission staffers have directed much of the initiative, though the money is distributed through various city departments. Records show that, in 2021 and 2022, Davis approved three contracts totaling $1.5 million directed towards for Collective Impact, Spingola’s nonprofit, as part of the Dream Keeper Initiative.
Mayoral candidate and nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie said Breed had “handed a blank check to her closest allies with zero oversight.”
In a statement on Thursday, Breed said that she was “committed to ensuring the integrity of the program and continuing the good that it does with full transparency.”
Breed said she has directed the Department of Human Resources and the city attorney’s office to investigate questions about the Dream Keeper Initiative. On Thursday, the Chronicle published a story that showed a “litany” of issues around Human Rights Commission spending, and questionable accounting practices.
Peskin called the questions about Davis and Spingola’s relationship “very serious and deeply disturbing and can’t be brushed under the rug.”
“I will be utilizing the Board of Supervisors unlimited power of inquiry,” Peskin said in an interview with The Standard. “To call public hearings and bring forward the controller and other oversight authorities to fully report and tell us the status of what they know and how they’re going to thoroughly investigate this matter, get to the bottom of it and hold people accountable.”