Frontpage Mag
Mohammed Nuru, former director of San Francisco Department of Public Works, cops to federal corruption charges.
âMohammed Nuru, the former director of San Francisco Public Works officially pleaded guilty Thursday to a federal fraud charge,â the San Francisco Chronicle reports, âmarking perhaps the most definitive development to date in the City Hall corruption scandal that has ensnared department heads and city contractors.â That is big news in San Francisco, but this is more than a local story.
Mohammed Nuru was born in England, son of a British mother and a Nigerian father, and came to the United States in 1983 to study landscape architecture at Kansas State University. Nuru graduated in 1987 and supervised construction projects in Saudi Arabia and the United States.
As Susan Dyer Reynolds noted in Marina Times, Nuruâs ascent started in 1991 when he became second in command at the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), a nonprofit managing community gardens. Nuru came to the attention of thenâCalifornia Assemblyman Willie Brown and worked for Brownâs San Francisco mayoral campaign and his reelection bid in 1999.
