No surprises here, just more evidence of what the 'defund the police' movement did to city budgets and basically poured them down the drain to line-pockets.
Facing questions over how a program meant to support San Francisco’s Black community has spent its money, Sheryl Davis, head of the Dream Keeper Initiative, has asked for a full audit.
In a letter dated Sept. 4 that was obtained by The Standard, Davis asks San Francisco Controller Greg Wagner to investigate spending across all city departments that manage Dream Keeper Initiative money and report on the program’s funds, operations, and performance.
The audit request comes as the Dream Keeper Initiative — which was spurred during the nationwide racial reckoning that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd — is facing scrutiny over how millions of dollars have been spent.
In an interview Wednesday, Davis confirmed that she had been in conversation with the controller’s office about an audit of the Dream Keeper Initiative. She said her audit request was not in response to a specific instance of wrongdoing but, rather, to get a sense of how well the initiative is executing its work.
“We wanted to do an audit just so we can know what works and where there are challenges,” Davis said. “That money was spread out across the city. We are trying to see what each different department did.”
Led by Mayor London Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton, city leaders in July 2020 proposed shifting money away from local law enforcement to fund economic and cultural development in San Francisco’s Black communities. Officials in February 2021 rolled out a more detailed plan, dubbed the Dream Keeper Initiative, calling for a $60 million annual investment.
In the current budget, which runs from July of this year to June 2025, Mayor London Breed scaled back Dream Keeper funding to about $45 million. Representatives of the controller’s office and the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the call for an audit.
The Dream Keeper budget has been divided among 11 city departments, with the largest shares going to the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Department of Public Health, and the Human Rights Commission.
However, The Standard reported in July that some of the community partners involved in Dream Keeper have left money unspent. A city dashboard intended to show the program’s spending has not been regularly updated, while some funding recipients have spent money in ways that raised eyebrows among city officials.
One recipient of Dream Keeper money, J&J Community Resource Center, made headlines after its director tried to get booze and cigars reimbursed. SF Black Wall Street, a program that promotes Black entrepreneurship, spent more than $700,000 on two Juneteenth parties — surpassing the $660,000 it had spent on grants for small businesses. A director of the entrepreneurship program, Tinisch Hollins, was also found to have redirected tens of thousands of dollars in administrative fees toward a shell company she created.
Last month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Urban Ed Academy, which received Dream Keeper Initiative funds, had hired few teachers in the city; instead, many of the jobs benefitted Oakland nonprofits or public schools. Davis, who also leads the SF Human Rights Commission, is the subject of a whistleblower complaint containing 20 allegations of impropriety, The Standard reported in July.
In a prior interview with The Standard, Davis admitted that mistakes had been made with the Dream Keeper Initiative but said no illegal conduct had been identified. Davis’ Human Rights Commission plans on providing an update about the Dream Keeper Initiative to the Board of Supervisors, though the Sept. 4 letter did not specify a date. A special meeting on Thursday will be held to discuss the initiative with Human Rights Commission members.
Posts: 15254 | Location: Wine Country | Registered: September 20, 2000
The person in charge of the program needs someone else to come in, figure out where the money went, and whether or not the money was spent effectively in support of the program’s goals?
You’re fired!
“Sheryl Davis, head of the Dream Keeper Initiative, has asked for a full audit.“
“ “We wanted to do an audit just so we can know what works and where there are challenges,” Davis said. “That money was spread out across the city. We are trying to see what each different department did.””
Posts: 12125 | Location: SWFL | Registered: October 10, 2007
To nobody’s surprise this close to an election where Mayor London Breed, her dear friend, is battling to keep her job, Sheryl Davis, head of the Human Rights Commission where she also ran the Dream Keeper Initiative, has resigned (on Friday the 13th, no less). As I pointed in last week’s GBTB, when London Breed was District 5 supervisor, she asked Mayor Ed Lee to allow Davis to run programming at the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center. After a few years there, Davis was asked to be interim director of the Human Rights Commission, and soon after that she became the director. In November 2023, I called out the Dream Keeper Initiative, which took $120 million from law enforcement and created a citywide plan for “reinvesting” those millions in San Francisco’s African American community, as a pet project of Mayor Breed and Supervisor Shamann Walton ripe for grift. “A quick glance at the beneficiaries brings up numerous ‘nonprofits’ with ties to Breed and Walton, including organizations involved with the SFPUC Community Benefits pay-to-play scheme,” I wrote. A year later, my predictions came true, with many of the nonprofits I referenced caught misusing those funds on everything from cigars and bourbon to $700,000 for two Juneteenth parties.
On Sept. 12, Davis took a paid leave of absence, but she phoned it in. The day before, on Sept. 11, she presided over the Dreaming Forward “fireside chat” and reception at the luxury five-star Riggs Hotel in Washington, D.C. The event was hosted by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, as was a seminar held from 11 a.m. to noon that same day called “Dreaming Forward: Investing in Black Culture to Advance Academic Excellence,” featuring Davis and Dream Keeper Initiative director Dr. Saidah Leatutufu-Burch.
It turns out Burch has big City Family ties as well, to District 10 supervisor Shamann Walton, co-sponsor of the Dream Keeper Initiative. Walton officiated the wedding of Leattutufu to his aide and longtime associate Percy Burch. In his opening comments, Walton made light of the fact they met “while one was the boss of the other” but said (with a “wink-wink”) that both swear the relationship started outside of work. And where did they work? At the infamous Young Community Developers while Walton was director. Not surprisingly, YCD got a nice grant from the Dream Keeper Initiative.
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Posts: 15254 | Location: Wine Country | Registered: September 20, 2000
Originally posted by bcereuss: California is the Minnesota of the west coast…and San Francisco is the Minneapolis of the west coast.
Like the line in the song “Dancing In The Streets” goes “Can’t forget the Motor City”
Detroit Riverfront Conservancy lawsuit alleges elaborate conspiracy cheated nonprofit of $40M Robert Snell Louis Aguilar The Detroit News
The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy sued its former CFO William Smith, his mother, wife, sister and the best man at his wedding Wednesday in a lawsuit that describes a conspiracy to steal almost $40 million from the nonprofit.
Conservancy leaders filed the lawsuit seven weeks after federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal case accusing Smith of stealing almost $40 million during a 12-year period while working for the nonprofit. The civil lawsuit and the criminal case represent two possible ways conservancy officials could recoup money involved in one of the largest alleged fraud schemes in Detroit history.
The lawsuit contains new allegations about an alleged theft that spanned 12 years, identifies people the conservancy says were part of the conspiracy, lists extravagant items purchased with conservancy funds — including free air travel for unnamed athletes, including professional basketball players — and describes a betrayal by a high-ranking executive accused of conning some of the region's top finance and business professionals.
-------------------------------------—————— ————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman)
Posts: 8529 | Location: Livingston County Michigan USA | Registered: August 11, 2002
California is the Minnesota of the west coast…and San Francisco is the Minneapolis of the west coast. ...
Like the line in the song “Dancing In The Streets” goes “Can’t forget the Motor City”
Detroit Riverfront Conservancy lawsuit alleges elaborate conspiracy cheated nonprofit of $40M
As Warren Delano, FDR’s grandfather, said: “Not all Democrats are horse thieves. But, in my experience, all horse thieves are Democrats.”
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown
"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor
Posts: 24959 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: April 03, 2009
