Last year, a federal grand jury indicted Rodrigo Santos, a San Francisco-based structural engineer, on charges of bank fraud, aggravated identity theft and obstruction of justice. Among the evidence were checks he’d directed clients to write to “DBI” — the Department of Building Inspection — which he then altered to say “RoDBIgo Santos.”

In all, he funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into his personal account.

The Santos scandal was only one piece in a string of corruption charges to hit San Francisco in recent years. And the Department of Building Inspection has been at the center of more than its share of them. Bernard Curran, a former senior inspector for the department, faces charges of perjury and conflict of interest from the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, and federal fraud and bribery charges.

In the wake of these scandals come long overdue efforts for reform.

With Proposition B, San Francisco voters have the opportunity in the June 7 election to support restructuring the Department of Building Inspection’s oversight commission. It’s a first step toward improving accountability in a department tasked with a gargantuan role: overseeing the construction, plumbing, electrical and mechanical codes for hundreds of thousands of buildings across San Francisco.

This reform is sorely needed, and we endorse a yes vote on the measure.

California election results

Unlike other large departments in the city, the director of the Department of Building Inspection is not supervised, hired or fired by the mayor. Instead, oversight of this role lands solely in the hands of the commission. But therein lies conflict; Currently, the majority of the seven commission seats are filled by people in building-related trades. The mayor appoints four positions, and the president of the Board of Supervisors appoints three. One must be a structural engineer (a role once filled by Santos in the early 2000s), another a licensed architect and so on. It is up to that commission — whose members often actively seek permits from the department to do their day jobs — to hire, fire and supervise the director.

Proposition B would shake up that structure. First, it would place the hiring and firing of the department’s director under the mayor’s jurisdiction, not the commission’s, making it consistent with other city departments. Second, it would strip dedicated industry seats from the commission and replace them with those with general technical qualifications. Nominations for those seats would then have to go through the Board of Supervisors’ Rules Committee, just like nominations for the San Francisco Planning Commission or the board of directors for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

The nomination process can be a fruit one. In recent years we’ve witnessed political and personal vendettas among members of the Board of Supervisors affect nominations of qualified candidates to oversight bodies. But nominations at least allow for public comment and would create consistency in how city department commissioners are selected.

Prop. B is not a magic wand that will end all potential forms of corruption in the department. However, it does make thoughtful changes to its oversight structure to provide better governance, in line with other city departments.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.

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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) – The Mayoress of San Francisco, London Breed, said Thursday she was issuing an executive order to prevent misconduct within the city’s building inspectorate after a report by the Controllers Office was released that cited nepotism, nepotism and nepotism Corruption can be alleged.

According to Breed’s policy, DBI officers are now required to more frequently certify and train employees on financial disclosure and conflict of interest forms; Make changes to the department’s approval tracking system to reduce fraud; work closely with the controller’s office; Providing information to staff and the general public about the city’s whistleblower program; and creating a compliance team to identify risks and combat abuse within the building permit and inspection processes.

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The new mandate is intended to increase transparency after a series of misconduct within the DBI last year as part of a federal corruption investigation that began with the arrest of former director of the Ministry of Public Works Mohammed Nuru in January 2020 on suspicion of wire fraud were revealed.

Since then, several other city officials have been linked to the corruption, including former DBI director Tom Hui, who was accused of legal and ethical violations, gave preferential treatment to a permit issuer and project developer, and used his position to get jobs for his son and son his son’s girlfriend within the city departments.

Also, the former president of the building inspectorate that regulates the DBI, Rodrigo Santos, has been charged by federal prosecutors with bank fraud, wire transfer fraud and serious identity theft, while DBI’s senior building inspector, Bernard Curran, is facing wire fraud charges.

In this case, prosecutors allege that Santos tricked $ 775,000 from his co-founded Santos and Urrutia Structural Engineers Inc. customers in return for Curran treating those customers cheaply during the on-site physical inspections and DBI permit approvals .

Breed’s Executive Policy was drawn up in line with the recommendations of Controller Ben Rosenfield in a report published Thursday on the DBI’s approval and inspection processes.

“Every city department must operate with the highest level of integrity and transparency, and all city employees must adhere to the highest ethical standards in their work,” Breed said in a statement.

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“If this doesn’t happen, it is our responsibility as leaders to understand what went wrong and take steps to prevent future misconduct. The controller’s report released today documents an unacceptable pattern of misconduct and systemic failures under the previous direction of the Department of Building Inspection. It describes a culture that allowed for continued misconduct determined by a “tone at the top” that failed to establish ethical leadership and guidelines. The people of San Francisco deserve better, ”she said.

Rosenfield said, “DBI’s work to ensure that all types of construction projects are designed, tested and built to regulations is critical to the health and safety of our city. The significant process weaknesses that we have uncovered need to be addressed quickly to ensure the health and safety of the San Franciscans. “

Patrick O’Riordan, interim director of DBI, who replaced Hui last year, said, “I am outraged by what has happened at DBI in the past and how former leaders have undermined the good work of our employees and violated public trust every day . It is not right and I am committed to getting us back on track. “

DBI is the municipal department tasked with overseeing and enforcing the city’s construction, housing, plumbing, electrical, and mechanical regulations.

The San Francisco City Prosecutor’s Office took legal action against Santos and his company for the first time in 2018 for alleging misconduct in connection with unauthorized excavations on properties on which the company performed engineering services.

In addition, in a separate case last year, federal prosecutors accused former Santos and Urrutia technician Peter Schurman of postal fraud and identity theft in connection with an alleged plan to produce fraudulent building inspection reports.

“Properly built buildings are a public safety issue, especially here in the earthquake area,” said City Prosecutor Dennis Herrera. “That makes the behavior that we uncovered alongside the controller particularly worrying. There is no place in the city administration for corruption, nepotism or nepotism. If someone plays with the system or abuses public trust, we will get to the bottom of the matter. “

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