Back in October 2023, employees in San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women made a nearly four-hour trek to Gravity Haus, a resort in Truckee that bills itself as a “storied California playland” due to its amenities and proximity to Tahoe’s ski slopes. It was an unusual sojourn for the small department, which now has just eight employees after experiencing significant staff turnover in the last several years.
The group — led by its executive director, Kimberly Ellis, a once-rising star in California progressive politics who was suspended from her job last week — kicked off the two-day work retreat by discussing budgets, trainings, and its upcoming “Shift Happens” policy summit, according to an agenda obtained by The Standard. Later that night, the group gathered for a working dinner at Stella, a restaurant that receives high marks for its “soulful eats.”
A menu from the retreat shows that offerings included swordfish, Spanish octopus, and Duroc pork cutlets. Employees who attended the retreat recalled Ellis and her top executives reveling in the moment as they extinguished multiple bottles of wine, despite the meal being listed as a work event.
This was just the beginning of the bizarre outing.
Christina Harbridge, a longtime political ally of Ellis’ who runs a behavioral coaching company called Allegory, Inc., also attended the mountain resort retreat. Multiple employees said they had “weird” interactions with Harbridge, who quietly took notes while sitting in the corner during meetings and conducted one-on-one sessions with staff. Even stranger, some staffers recalled being told to personally pay for hotel room incidentals because Harbridge was picking up the cost of the rooms. Sources familiar with the city’s contracting process described this as highly unusual.
An inspection of contracts shows that between 2022 and 2024, the Department on the Status of Women paid almost $85,000 to Harbridge, whom Ellis described on social media as a “dear friend.” The two had known each other for years, collaborating during Ellis’ time at Emerge California, a women’s political incubator Ellis led. Harbridge also backed Ellis’ contentious bid for California Democratic chair in 2017 when she lost, initially refused to concede, and alleged vote tampering.
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The grants for Allegory were billed as trainings, but employees said Ellis and Harbridge — the latter of whom specializes in “natural physiology” and conducted another city staff training where staff molded figures out of a clay-like substance — never followed up with any reports or insights to be shared with employees.
The Truckee retreat appears to be part of a pattern of Ellis steering city funds to friends and allies and boosting her own career as a political consultant.
Interviews with almost a dozen former employees of the Department on the Status of Women — which was established in 1994 with the mission of protecting and advancing the equitable treatment of women and girls in the city — suggested that under Ellis’ leadership, staffers who raised questions about department operations were punished and marked for dismissal. The effect, according to those ex-employees, was to instill a culture of fear and blind loyalty, allowing Ellis to potentially abuse the agency’s contracting processes by giving taxpayer money to close associates.
The department’s budget totaled $11.7 million last year, roughly $10 million of which was allocated for outside grants. According to former staffers, Ellis’ tenure was marked by a startling amount of turnover at the small department combined with lax oversight of spending. City officials did not provide records to The Standard about the cost of the Truckee event and other contracts by deadline.
“That was such a colossal waste of time,” one former employee said of the retreat. Another former staffer said they were confused as to why they even left the city: “We were just in a conference room doing the same meeting we could do in San Francisco. There was no reason for us going all the way there.”
Ellis and Harbridge did not respond to requests for comment.
The city’s conflict of interest rules require that officials report personal, professional, and business relationships with those who enter into city contracts. The city has no record of Ellis disclosing her personal relationship with Harbridge.
Contracts and the treatment of staff under Ellis’ watch have come under greater scrutiny since last week, when she was placed on leave pending an investigation.
In December, just a few months before her suspension, Ellis amended economic disclosure forms for 2023 to note that her consulting company, Southern Belle Strategies, received income from Power PAC, a progressive political action committee. Records show her company received $19,350 in payments. Meanwhile, her department has funded Power PAC’s nonprofit affiliate with roughly $120,000 since 2022. City officials told The Standard it could find no evidence that Ellis sought the required permission to have a second gig.
Since former Mayor London Breed appointed Ellis in late 2020, at least three employees have filed grievances with their union against the Department on the Status of Women, and 24 people have left the department, records show.
“It’s insane,” a former employee said. “People were leaving without having jobs lined up.” Another former staffer echoed a sentiment shared by other employees: “It was a culture of surveillance, fear, and bullying.”
Over time, sources said, Ellis and her top lieutenants became more savvy in avoiding labor grievances while continuing to push out staff.
“Rather than learn from their mistakes,” a former staffer said, “they just became more efficient in their cruelty.”
‘Loyalty was everything’
In one instance, a former employee in the Department on the Status of Women recalled being told to bill unrelated work to a federal grant they were managing. The employee said they raised concerns about the arrangement with Ellis, but the issue was never resolved. The worker was fired, filed a grievance with their union and received a settlement from the city.
“That put a target on my back,” the ex-staffer said. “Being outspoken on some of the things.”
At least two settlements have been paid to department employees since 2021, The Standard confirmed.
Another worker said they faced retaliation after trying to maintain proper accounting practices in the office. The former employee recalled hosting a presentation regarding rules for contracts under $10,000 and seeing Ellis walk out.
“She was going to do things that were not clean,” the employee said. “She knew I wasn’t going to follow.”
Former workers said Ellis unfairly fired a colleague shortly after the person raised concerns about department operations. Ellis later implied the person was a safety risk by changing the locks on the department’s doors.
“For Kimberly, loyalty was everything,” said the fired employee. “Either you did everything without questioning, or you weren’t loyal to her.”
Those in Ellis’ inner circle were rewarded with perks, former staff said.
Staffers said Ellis routinely held court with her executive team at lavish lunches at the five-star Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. One outing in August 2023 totaled just under $500 for seven people, according to an itemized receipt obtained by The Standard. The check included teas, coffees, espressos, mushroom omelets, steak frites, branzino, strawberry and spring salads, two scoops of ice cream, sweet pea agnolotti entrees, a smash burger, prawns, a virgin cocktail, two hot chocolates, and a yuzu mango tart.
“It was just gluttony at best,” said a staffer who attended the meal. “It was really strange and made me uncomfortable.”
Naz Rydhan-Foster, a senior program manager for the department who previously worked with Ellis at Emerge California, was listed as the name on the check for the $500 meal. Rydhan-Foster did not respond to requests for comment, but a former employee told The Standard that they were asked to submit reimbursements for a Claremont lunch.
Expense reports for Ellis show three charges for team meetings in Berkeley in 2023, although it’s not clear if those were at the Claremont. The report also lists expenses for the Truckee retreat for mileage, a bridge toll, and a per diem of $25, but it does not list anything related to hotel rooms at Gravity Haus. No charges related to the Claremont meals or Truckee retreat were listed on records related to a procurement card Ellis had for the department.
‘This department was supposed to support the women’
Other questions about spending on events are part of a broader inquiry that led to Ellis’ recent suspension from the department, sources told The Standard.
The department budgeted $700,000 to host the April 2024 conference “Shift Happens,” which was billed as a policy summit focused on women. The one-day summit at Moscone Center featured a fashion show and sessions on abortion rights and political organizing, as well as a fireside chat between Ellis and Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the documentary filmmaker and wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Records provided by the department show the conference included a $90,000 catering tab, $120,000 for video production, $70,000 for administrative expenses, and $25,000 for exhibitions and educational materials. The organization that received the contract for the summit, Ignite, has previous financial links to Ellis. Her Form 700, filed in December 2020 shortly after her appointment by Breed, shows Ignite paid Ellis’ consulting firm over $10,000.
Last summer, The Standard requested detailed payment records for the 2024 Shift Happens conference, but the department claimed it hadn’t retained receipts, invoices, or information on other vendors associated with the event.
Ellis released a statement hours after her suspension and called allegations against her “baseless.” She quoted Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning song “Not Like Us” and claimed she was retaliated against after raising concerns about misconduct in a foster care pilot program. She did not provide further details on those concerns and indicated she would not comment further on the situation.
“If the intent behind these misleading, sensational narratives was to deter me — even at personal cost — then they clearly don’t know me,” Ellis wrote.
In response to her suspension, the 450-member Black Employees Alliance called out the city for a double standard in its treatment of Ellis, a Black woman, compared to Lisa Pratt, a white Department of Public Health director who was found to be improperly moonlighting for a nonprofit funded by her department. Pratt was allowed to keep her city job after the side gig came to light in 2022.
“I think this is disgraceful,” Dante King, a founder of the alliance, said in an interview. “And it is incredibly racist.”
It’s unclear how the Department on the Status of Women intends to move forward now that it has come under the purview of City Administrator Carmen Chu. Former employees said the only surprising thing about Ellis’ suspension is that it took this long for her actions to come to light.
“This department was supposed to support the women in the city,” said one former employee. “But it is all a lie.”