“The day after you won the City of Oakland contract, you were there, paying everyone, everyone was like f—ing piranhas. I was there, I was in your office, $50,000, $100,000, whatever it was, and you say what do you want and I said I just want to do business with you.”
— Mario Juarez to the Duong family referencing payouts to multiple public officials in exchange for helping California Waste Solutions secure a recycling contract with Oakland in 2014. He is expected to testify in the upcoming trial.
June 20, 2024, was the first time many people had heard of Andy Duong. That was the morning the FBI raided a home associated with then-Oakland mayor Sheng Thao and her boyfriend Andre Jones, who once said he was “the person who designed the state’s cannabis grant equity program.”
The FBI also searched the offices of California Waste Solutions at Oakland’s Embarcadero, the home of California Waste Solutions’ Andy Duong on View Crest Court, and the home of California Waste Solutions’ David and Linda Duong on Skyline Boulevard. According to a Sept. 15, 2020, Oaklandside article, the Oakland Public Ethics Commission, the city’s independent watchdog agency, quietly launched a major investigation into allegations that the owners of California Waste Solutions, Oakland’s curbside recycling provider, illegally laundered campaign contributions to multiple members of the City Council. Court records revealed that Public Ethics Commission investigators believe the owners of California Waste Solutions, including David Duong and his son, Andy Duong, funneled money over several election cycles through “straw donors” to multiple councilmembers’ campaign committees.” The funds allegedly went to councilmembers running for reelection at the time, and to one councilwoman, Lynette Gibson McElhaney, to pay for an attorney who defended her in a separate ethics case. Besides McElhaney, the Public Ethics Commission named four other councilmembers who accepted some of the allegedly laundered money: Sheng Thao, Rebecca Kaplan, Larry Reid, and Dan Kalb.
The indictments of Thao and the Duongs was actually a culmination spanning decades of scandals that included political players from the East Bay as well as from San Francisco. Here is a timeline of the events leading up to the Oakland corruption case, which is set for trial this October.
The Willie Brown connection
The years from 1989 to 1993 set key early connections among former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown; former Oakland mayor Elihu Harris and his wife, Kathy Neal; the Duong family, and the emerging California Waste Solutions (CWS) network in Bay Area waste and recycling politics against a backdrop of federal scrutiny of Brown’s private legal work for garbage interests.
By the late 1980s, a multiyear federal political corruption probe in Sacramento (involving undercover FBI operations that netted convictions of other legislators including Joseph Montoya and Paul Carpenter) had repeatedly touched then-State Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Associates claimed elements of the sting targeted him; Brown maintained he was a subject of inquiry but not a prosecutable target, and no charges were filed against him.
In December 1990, a flurry of federal grand jury subpoenas hit legislative committees and individual lawmakers. An aide to Brown stated the speaker was the principal target. The latest round focused on Brown’s work for Northern California garbage client Norcal Solid Waste Systems, Inc. and its subsidiaries for which he had reported legal fees in the mid- to late 1980s while the California legislature considered bills that would have eased local opposition to dump sites. Subpoenas sought records of 1985 and 1988 bills by Assembly members including Cathie Wright, Dominic Cortese, Chris Chandler, and then-Assemblyman Elihu Harris, who had just been elected mayor of Oakland. One unsuccessful bill from then Gov. George Deukmejian’s administration bill would have allowed the state Waste Management Board to override local vetoes of dump sites.
A March 1989 story by the now defunct San Francisco Bay Guardian had already highlighted Brown’s Norcal work in the Solano County/Lynch Canyon dump fight (intended to serve San Francisco refuse). It quoted a 1986 San Francisco city memo stating that if Vallejo annexed the site, state permitting “is almost a certainty, as Willie Brown has promised to push the project through the state.” Brown declined comment on the memo. Norcal — which later became Recology — faced related scrutiny over campaign contributions and influence efforts. The probe into Brown’s representation produced no indictments.
In 1990, Speaker Brown appointed Kathy Neal, then-wife of Elihu Harris, to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, where she served for four years. Harris rejected suggestions that the post was a proxy favor or that it stemmed purely from his friendship with Brown, citing Neal’s own consulting firm, master’s in public administration, Democratic Party activity, prior legislative analysis work, and State Bar board service. The appointment was still seen by critics as an example of patronage placements on state boards and pointed to the fact the friendship between the three extended to other ventures, such as their partnership in an Oakland radio station.
The Duong family’s entry into Oakland public contracts
Founder and president of CWS David Duong and his family, Vietnamese refugees who built a Bay Area recycling business, incorporated CWS around this time. Sources place the firm’s first public sector recycling contract with Oakland in the early 1990s. Harris has said he first learned of the Duongs through Larry Reid, then his assistant chief of staff and later a longtime Oakland councilmember. Impressed by their West Oakland operations, Harris, along with Reid, helped them secure that initial Oakland contract. The city also provided a substantial loan for vehicles.
CWS and the Duongs became campaign funders for Harris’s mayoral committees and other Oakland officials in the mid-to-late 1990s. Reported totals include roughly $25,000 from David Duong and family members between 1994 and 1998 to Harris, Reid, and others (Harris receiving a sizable share). A 1993 trade delegation trip to Ho Chi Minh City involving Duong, Harris, and Reid focused on Port of Oakland opportunities if the United States embargo on Vietnam were lifted. Harris and Reid mediating a 1998 CWS workers’ strike, and CWS later hiring Harris’s then-spouse Neal for assistance with a Vietnam-related bidding package.
In 1998, near the end of his mayoral tenure, Harris appointed Neal to the Oakland Port Commission. The appointment drew controversy and later a Fair Political Practices Commission fine against Harris of $2,000 for a conflict-of-interest violation (she received nonsalary income including a car allowance). Harris said they were separated and the city attorney had advised no conflict under the charter’s no-compensation language for commissioners.
Enter Mohammed Nuru
These 1989 to 1993 threads — Brown’s long-standing garbage-industry legal/political relationships under federal scrutiny, the Harris/Neal appointments in waste and port spheres, and the facilitated entry of the Duong family and CWS into Oakland recycling contracts with reciprocal political support — are tied to a pattern of “juice” politics that traveled over the Bay Bridge. San Francisco Department of Public Works head Mohammed Nuru, a Brown protégé, went to prison in 2022 on multiple corruption charges, including Brown’s former client Norcal, now Recology, admitted to bribing Nuru for favorable rate and operational treatment. No single contemporaneous charging document links the 1990 Brown probe directly to the Duongs, but the overlapping personnel, industry, and political networks are a matter of public record from that time period.
Peralta Community College connection and Mario Juarez
The years between 2001 and 2008 extended the Harris–Neal network into Peralta Community College District contracting, campaign management, and nonprofit activity, with documented payments from bond funds and later ties to figures who surface in Oakland corruption probes.
In 2001 reporting on Peralta Community College District trustees and contracting, one firm identified as doing business with the district was owned by Neal called Kneal Resource System Alliance (also referenced as Kneal Resource System). Neal has described her company as providing public, governmental, and community affairs, communications, and project-management services.
In early 2003, after a consultant warned that the five-campus Peralta district risked losing accreditation without a chancellor, Harris was quickly named acting chancellor. Contemporary accounts described the appointment as having “all the telltale signs of a political inside job.” Neal, then estranged from Harris, had served as campaign manager for board trustee Linda Handy, who defeated former trustee Brenda Knight in the November 2002 election. Harris was reappointed to a concurrent state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board post and initially expected to serve only months while a search occurred; he later became permanent chancellor, serving until 2010.
In the 2008 Oakland City Council race for the Glenview–Fruitvale seat, Neal served as campaign manager for political newcomer Mario Juarez, who received the Alameda County Democratic Party endorsement over incumbent Council President Ignacio De La Fuente. Noting that Neal (a Central Committee member) was on the interview panel while managing his opponent’s campaign, De La Fuente publicly called the endorsement process “a sham.” A party spokesperson acknowledged that Central Committee members sometimes manage campaigns and that conflicts are disclosed; Neal said she pushed for Juarez during deliberations. Juarez attributed the endorsement to his message rather than his manager.
That same year, Neal was president and Juarez was treasurer of the Oakland Community Fund, a nonprofit described in filings as sponsoring business luncheons and administering grants. Later court records in a fraud case involving Juarez reference the Fund: Juarez, then a board member, allegedly misrepresented ownership of a property and diverted a $45,000 loan the Fund made to a borrower; Neal, as CEO, confirmed the funds were not properly remitted and that Juarez lacked authority to keep them. The relationship between Neal and Juarez later soured.
Records show Neal began formal work for Peralta in 2008 while her ex-husband Harris was chancellor. She was paid around $67,000 that year, most of it from 2006 Measure A construction-bond proceeds. Between 2009 and 2017 she received another $241,000 totaling more than $308,000 over the decade, primarily for “education and outreach” related to Measure A projects. Payments were made in small increments that did not require board approval. Harris later stated that Neal had done some district work before he became chancellor and that she worked on newsletters highlighting bond projects. A 2018 state elections complaint against trustee Linda Handy (who had outstanding debts to Neal’s firm) raised conflict-of-interest issues tied to these arrangements.
In March of 2011, the FBI investigated Harris’s role in awarding a nearly $950,000 contract to his longtime business partner, Mark A. Lindquist of 1701 Associates, Inc. Agents questioned Harris, Lindquist, and Peralta Vice Chancellor Sadiq Ikharo (who administered the contract).
The contract began in April 2007 as a $69,000 no-bid award for urgently needed health-and-safety repairs at Laney College. It was amended three times (with Board of Trustees sign-offs) and grew to $948,796 by June 2008 before being terminated after 14 months over “performance concerns.” An earlier independent inspector general review and grand jury criticism had already examined the arrangement; Harris had not disclosed his real estate partnership with Lindquist to trustees when recommending the larger contract. Harris’s attorney confirmed the federal inquiry; Lindquist described it as revisiting earlier questions. The probe resulted in no public charges against Harris.
Viridis Fuels and the EBMUD long-term agreement
In late October 2011, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Board of Directors approved a long-term agreement with Oakland-based Viridis Fuels for a planned 20 million gallon per year biodiesel processing facility on EBMUD land in West Oakland adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant near the Bay Bridge toll plaza. Viridis signed leases on two three-acre parcels. The project envisioned an energy-independent plant using combined heat and power plus possible solar, multiple feedstocks (primarily local grease and oil waste, capable of handling algae, jatropha, camelina, etc.), rail/truck loading, storage, offices, a lab, and educational facilities. Glycerin byproduct was to feed anaerobic digesters generating power.
A familiar East Bay player by now, Kathy Neal was identified as CEO of Viridis Fuels. She stated the projected cost of capital outlay and full deployment was approximately $80 million. The firm retained the East Bay municipal-finance firm Westhoff, Cone & Holmstedt. Projections included roughly 50 plant jobs (mostly entry level with local training) plus indirect employment. EBMUD had issued a request for proposal (RFP) to more than 100 biofuel firms in 2009 after running its own small pilot. Local officials, including then city council President Larry Reid, publicly praised the local “green jobs” potential. However, the plant was never built. Later reporting established that Viridis — linked to Neal and Mario Juarez—secured a multi-million-dollar California Energy Commission grant with legislative support; roughly $681,000 was spent on site work and design before the project stalled, with only limited matching funds raised. The land remained vacant and the company became defunct.
These 2011 developments sit downstream of the earlier Harris–Peralta consulting payments, campaign work, and 1990s waste-industry ties, and upstream of later Oakland contracting and corruption inquiries involving overlapping networks.
Coming up in part 2: How Rob and Mia Bonta played pivotal roles in East Bay political scandals, from a California Energy Commission $3.4 million grant for Viridis Fuels to repeated politician-to-spouse-nonprofit funding.
