A top San Francisco city official spent $80,000 hiring a company to take “dynamic portraits” of her small staff and to produce a video series that apparently never came to fruition, adding to mounting concerns about her spending habits .
Kimberly Ellis, who was placed on leave last week from her job as director of the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, awarded a contract worth up to $100,000 to a production company in September 2023, hiring the firm to snap portraits of 21 people and record a series of conversations around gender equity. Ultimately the department paid $20,000 less than the full amount of the contract.
A memo obtained by the Chronicle instructed staffers to gather at the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park for their photo shoots…