SF Mayor Breed Names Replacement for City Administrator Marred by Scandal

San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Thursday nominated Carmen Chu to serve as the new city administrator, replacing Naomi Kelly who resigned earlier this week amid an unfolding corruption scandal.

Chu, who is now the city’s tax assessor and recorder, still needs to be confirmed by the Board of Supervisors.

Kelly, the former administrator, resigned after her husband, former San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly, was charged by the U.S. attorney’s office in November with wire service fraud, in connection with a probe that has brought down several high-ranking city officials.

The city administrator post is San Francisco’s highest-ranking, non-elected office, overseeing more than 20 departments and a $700 million annual budget.

Chu is no stranger to taking the reins of a new position amid scandal. In 2007, she was appointed to the city’s Board of Supervisors by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom after former District 4 Supervisor Ed Jew was accused of extortion in a wholly separate scandal.

Responding to KQED in a Thursday morning press conference, Chu said she would work to ensure that the departments she oversees are clear of corruption.

“One of the things that all of us will be doing is looking very, very closely to make sure that we have the systems in place to ensure that there’s transparency in how we’re delivering our public service and how it is that we run our organization,” Chu said. “It’s a fundamental piece of the picture that we have public trust and that we can tap into.”

Breed lauded Chu’s leadership as “valuable,” citing her record of reversing a backlog of cases in the assessor’s office that boosted the city’s available budget.

Following the death of Mayor Ed Lee in 2017, some of San Francisco’s Asian American groups have lamented the lack of leaders from their community represented in San Francisco government. Malcolm Yeung, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center, and an airport commissioner, lauded Chu’s nomination as a step in the right direction for Asian American representation in the city.

“This announcement surprises me, but in a very good way,” Yeung said. “I deeply appreciate the ongoing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in how the mayor is picking our city leaders.”

Kelly, who resigned Tuesday, is the latest city official to step down after being implicated — though not charged — in the wide-ranging corruption scandal that has already ensnared her husband, as well as former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru and former Department of Building Inspection Director Tom Hui.

When asked by KQED if she had pushed Kelly to resign, Breed declined to answer.

“Well, many of you know better than to ask about personnel issues,” she said. “The fact is we cannot discuss them.”

Notably, several of the officials charged in the scandal have been the mayor’s long-time allies and friends, including both Naomi and Harlan Kelly, and Nuru, who she was once romantically involved with.

And while personnel matters are sometimes legally touchy areas for discussion by city mayors, Lee did publicly ask for the resignation of former San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr following the shooting deaths of Black and brown suspects by police and the public outcry that followed.

Breed’s office would not elaborate on why Kelly’s resignation warranted less transparency.