Multiple sources within the San Francisco Police Department tell me that Assistant Chief David Lazar will step down May 29, 2025. Lazar is a 4th generation San Franciscan and became a member of the San Francisco Police Department in 1991. He was promoted from deputy chief in 2022. One source told me that Mayor Daniel Lurie let him know there was “no path for him to become chief.” Whether true or not, Lazar has both supporters and detractors. It’s well known that he has aspired to be chief for many years, and that got under the skin of some rank and file as well as other top brass.
I interviewed David Lazar for a Marina Times story in 2014 when he was the former head of the San Francisco Police Academy after three dogs were shot in the back and killed by SFPD in as many months, to ask why the department didn’t include training on how to handle such situations for its officers. Lazar admitted that they didn’t offer training on how to deal with dogs for recruits, and they only had “tentative” plans to add it to their continued professional training program — in January 2015.
On Feb. 14, 2025, Lazar acknowledged turning on the lights of his unmarked police vehicle to get around traffic during NBA All-Star Weekend, resulting in a collision with another driver while heading to a Lunar New Year dinner. SFPD policy states officers may use lights and sirens only during a pursuit or when “an emergency response appears reasonably necessary to prevent serious injury to persons, whether or not a criminal offense is involved. … ”
The San Francisco Standard’s Joe Fitz Rodriguez penned an article this week in an apparent effort to garner sympathy for grant recipients of the scandal and grift-plagued Dream Keeper Initiative, which will lose money promised to them under the disgraced Sheryl Davis. As I wrote in September of 2024, Davis — a dear friend of former Mayor London Breed and District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, the architects of Dream Keeper — threw a party at one of D.C.’s swankiest hotels just before her resignation as head of the Human Rights Commission, where she also ran the Dream Keeper Initiative. Davis also took two trips to Martha’s Vineyard in 2023 and 2024, where she and other Dream Keeper recipients were event sponsors, including Collective Impact, run by her alleged live-in partner James Spingola. Unsurprisingly, Collective Impact is one of the “nonprofits” losing their funding.
In the subhead of his article, Rodriguez says the “latest fallout imperils programs meant to help Black, Chinese and trans communities.” A look at the list tells a different story — only one Chinese community group, the Chinese Culture Foundation, is losing money in the form of a $200,000 grant, but they’ll be just fine. According to their latest 990, they had revenue of over $7 million, expenses of $1.7 million, assets of $13 million, and total liabilities of $311,000. Executive Director Jenny Leung makes $168,000.
“In the last few weeks, the city wrote letters to more than a dozen organizations informing them they would no longer be awarded a collective $10.6 million promised by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission,” Rodriguez wrote. “The cancelation of the grants is already having dire consequences. The Transgender District, which endeavors to offer economic stability and cultural empowerment to the trans community, is facing layoffs after losing $250,000 in promised funds.” The Transgender District hasn’t filed a 990, meaning it is likely fiscally sponsored by a larger agency.
Transgender Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice was expecting a $950,000 grant. According to their latest 990 from 2023, they had close to $2.9 million in revenue, $3.8 million in expenses, total assets of $8.33 million, total liabilities of $4.34 million, and net income of minus $913,834 — a number very close to the nearly $900,000 they pay their top seven employees.
Homeless Children’s Network was promised $1,250,000 — the price of a condo in San Francisco. They had revenue of $10 million, expenses of $9 million, and net income of $887,750. They paid their top seven employees $1,189,000.
Cathy Davis, director of Bayview Senior Services, which lost $700,000 in promised funds, told Rodriguez that the reversal is unprecedented. “This is the first time in my 45 years I’ve seen an award letter rescinded, ever,” Davis said. “If you depended on this to run your program, you’d be really screwed.” Well, fortunately for Davis, she doesn’t need to depend on Dream Keeper. Her organization had revenue of $8,410,108. Davis makes $140,677 while her director of administration Neal Hatten pulls in $108,157 and her controller is paid $102,472.
Queer Women of Color Media Arts lost $500,000 in promised funds. Kebo Drew, managing director of the nonprofit, told Rodriguez that Dream Keeper previously funded the pilot of its critical juncture program, which paid queer and transgender Black filmmakers to tell community stories. One of those films, Belly of the World, a documentary by April September, “explores systemic racism faced by people seeking reproductive justice. It tells the stories of two Black trans men navigating pregnancy and parenthood and features a San Francisco doctor and a Mississippi midwife who pioneered economic support for pregnant Black people.” Queer Women of Color Media Arts had revenue of $722,000 and expenses of $736,000 for net income of minus $13,750. They may have been depending on that money to pay Executive Director Madeleine Lim and T Kebo Drew their salaries, totaling $233,500. I could continue down the list, but you get the picture. …
Monday, interim Oakland mayor Kevin Jenkins fired all remaining office staff who had worked for Mayor Sheng Thao, who was recalled by voters before the former mayor was indicted on felony charges of bribery and conspiracy. The latest scandal erupted when Leigh Hanson, Thao’s former chief of staff, was fired Sunday over a note she had written during a private meeting that alluded to the use of Black people as “tokens.” Among the staff placed on administrative leave Monday ahead of their termination at the end of this week were Public Safety Director Brooklyn Williams, Policy Director Joe Genolio, constituent liaison Mary Olsen, and Brandon Harami, a junior staffer who headed the mayor’s “community resilience” effort. Harami’s name probably sounds familiar to those who frequent social media — he’s long been a gadfly known for creating multiple fake accounts to personally attack those who criticized Thao, even keeping a list of her “enemies” during the campaign, where she won by a narrow 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent edge over fellow city Councilman Loren Taylor, who represented District 6.
Speaking of Taylor, he is running again to replace Thao in what is essentially a two-person contest between him and former U.S. Representative Barbara Lee. As The Voice reported in a month’s long investigation published on — no joke — April 1, a family company run by Lee is tied to 287 federal contract actions worth $63 million, many while she was in political office. According to the Federal Procurement Data System, over $44 million went to “guard services.” Lee worked for 11 years in the late Congressman Ron Dellums’s office when, just prior to her exit on Oct. 31, 1986, she filed Articles of Incorporation for the W.C. Parish Company, Inc., cofounded with her mother, Mildred Parish Massey, in Oakland, Calif. Operated under the name Lee Associates, the corporation issued 10,000 shares of stock. W.C. Parish Company was named after Lee’s grandfather, William Calhoun Parish. It was family run, with Massey managing it alongside Lee (until Massey’s retirement in 1998). You may recall that Lee’s mentor, Dellums, was mostly considered a failure as Oakland’s mayor after he spent years as a legislator — something he didn’t deny. “I have come to realize that as the mayor of Oakland, I personify city government,” he told the East Bay Express in 2009. “I have to get out there and get out of my comfort zone.”
With controversy over those federal contracts, years in national politics far away from Oakland, and her age (she’s 78 while Taylor is 47), Lee has missed out on key endorsements, including the San Francisco Chronicle (normally a bastion for progressive politicos) and San Jose’s Matt Mahan, whom I consider to be the best mayor in the Bay Area. The special election to fill Thao’s seat takes place April 15.