Ex-San Francisco department head to receive $4,000 fine after City Hall scandal

English

The former San Francisco official, whose ties to garbage collection giant Recology embroiled her in the City Hall scandal, will settle her ethical lawsuit for a fraction of the $25,000 penalty she faced, recently released reports show.

On February 8, former head of the Department of the Environment Debbie Rafael agreed to pay a $4,000 fine for gifts and food she took from Recology and a non-profit organization that raised money for her agency.

The gifts included Raphael’s attendance at the 2019 Recology Offices Annual Dinner and the 2018 Fairmont Hotel Climate Action Gala – the total cost paid by the company is about $140, according to a statement from the Ethics Commission staff.

Although the gifts are not that important, ethicists have concluded that Rafael should not have accepted them because she did business with Recology and the non-profit organization Friends of SF Environment.

Half of her $4,000 fine is for signing a contract that benefited the nonprofit after it received $1,117 in event tickets a year earlier. Ethics officers found the gifts violated conflict of interest laws, despite Rafael claiming to have attended the events on her department’s behalf.

Rafael led the Department of the Environment from 2014 until her resignation in April 2022 following a report by The Standard and a city investigation that revealed she solicited a $25,000 donation from Recology shortly before she landed a lucrative landfill contract with the firm.

The donation helped pay for the city’s series of Earth Day events.

Rafael has been embroiled in a wider scandal that has led to federal charges against three Recology subsidiaries for donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the official in charge of setting the rates San Francisco residents pay for garbage collection: former public works director Mohammed Nuru.

Ethics officials said that Rafael violated a key rule protecting the public from both undue influence and the appearance of a game fee by accepting gifts.

“Any violation of the restricted access to information rule undermines the public’s trust in the integrity of city officials when officials are seen as placing personal gain over public duty,” the ethics officers wrote. “Thus, even accepting small gifts from a limited source can undermine public trust.

However, ethicists set a lower sentence for Rafael because she cooperated with the investigation and tried to reimburse Recology for some of her gifts, demonstrating a “desire to fix past problems.”

Ethics staff also noted that Friends of SF Environment “was created solely to support the department, and not to do business with it in their own interests.” The non-profit organization received funds on behalf of the Department of the Environment and was staffed by people working under Raphael.

Rafael’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

Several people came to the previous Ethics Commission meeting to urge the body to clear her name. They said that Rafael was a “perfect civil servant” who sought to benefit his department, not himself.

The settlement requires the approval of the Ethics Commission, which is expected to vote on the agreement on Friday.

English