S. F. official Kelly resigns
Administrator’s spouse charged in bribe scandal
San Francisco City Administrator Naomi Kelly, the city’s highestranking nonelected official, will resign Feb. 1, she told Mayor London Breed on Tuesday, weeks after federal prosecutors implicated her husband in an expanding City Hall corruption scandal.
Kelly started a sixweek leave of absence last month to focus on her family after prosecutors charged her husband, former San Francisco Public Utilities Commission chief Harlan Kelly, with accepting bribes from a contractor.
Prosecutors have not charged Naomi Kelly with a crime. The criminal complaint against her husband alleges she attended a 2016 family vacation that federal investigators believe was intended as a bribe for Harlan Kelly.
In a letter Tuesday to Breed, Naomi Kelly said she was stepping down “in light of the recent allegations, based on the false statements of an admitted liar.”
The statement is a reference to Walter Wong, a construc
tion company executive and permit consultant who has pleaded guilty to his role in a pay-to-play scheme and has since implicated Harlan Kelly, according to federal investigators.
Naomi Kelly said she was “deeply saddened” to resign while her office leads the city’s logistical response efforts to the COVID19 pandemic.
“However, I know that this is the right decision for San Francisco, for my family, and especially for my two children who have been devastated by these allegations,” she wrote.
First appointed in 2012 by then Mayor Ed Lee, Naomi Kelly will become the fifth city department head to step down or resign amid an expanding City Hall corruption scandal.
Naomi Kelly oversees 25 departments, approximately 2,700 employees and an annual budget of nearly $ 750 million.
In her letter, she listed her accomplishments, recalling how she climbed the ranks from legislative analyst to city administrator and became the first African American and first woman to serve in the role.
Without specifically addressing her husband’s case, Naomi Kelly suggested in her letter that she would deny any wrongdoing.
“Public service is ... a sacred trust and a sacred task, a profound responsibility,” she said. “And make no mistake, I have held up my end of this covenant.”
Harlan Kelly’s attorney has denied the allegations and vowed to take the case to trial.
Officials with Breed’s office did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday evening.
Deputy City Administrator Ken Bukowski assumed the role as acting city administrator last month when Naomi Kelly took leave and will continue to head the department. Breed will later nominate a successor, who will then need to be confirmed by the Board of Supervisors.
Naomi Kelly is the latest person to fall in a multipronged bribery scheme that was first made public last year with the arrest of former San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru. Nuru, who resigned in February, was charged with fraud in connection with an alleged attempt to bribe an airport commissioner.
The case touched off what has since been a dizzying web of allegations involving topranking city officials and contractors bidding for lucrative city work.
Harlan Kelly resigned as the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in November after the FBI raided his and Naomi Kelly’s home, and prosecutors charged him with accepting bribes.
Along with the Kellys and Nuru, the scandal has also prompted the departures of Tom Hui, former Department of Building Inspection director accused of accepting gifts and meals from Wong, and Sandra Zuniga, former FixIt director charged with money laundering.
The case against Harlan Kelly centered around Wong, a construction company executive and permit consultant who ran or controlled multiple entities doing business with San Francisco.
Officials said Wong paid for an expensive family vacation to Hong Kong for the Kellys in 2016, a tab that included jewelry, meals, plane tickets and hotel rooms. At the same time, Wong was seeking a multimilliondollar contract from the PUC to renovate city streetlights.
While prosecutors did not level allegations against Naomi Kelly in the complaint against her husband, officials suggested that she may have misled investigators who interviewed her about the trip.
Naomi Kelly told FBI agents that she “paid Wong a lot of money for the trip,” a claim not backed up by the Kellys’ bank records, the complaint states.
Harlan Kelly had also tapped Wong for renovation work on the couple’s Inner Sunset property. Brian Getz, Harlan Kelly’s attorney, previously told The Chronicle that his client “paid fair market value for this work — if anything, he may have been overcharged by Mr. Wong’s firm.”
Wong has been cooperating with the federal government and has since pleaded guilty to conspiracies to commit honest services fraud and money laundering.
Harlan Kelly is free on a $ 200,000 bond while awaiting trial. His next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 2.