Jackie Fielder Returns as Leak Allegations Loom
Jackie Fielder returns to City Hall on June 29 after three months on medical leave—but the City Attorney’s investigation into whether her office leaked a privileged legal memo hasn’t closed.
TL;DR
Texts obtained via a public records request show Fielder’s aide communicating with the Mission Local reporter on the day the story published. Her office denied the leak, one aide left and has since been replaced, and the City Charter makes removal nearly impossible. No findings have been announced and no one has been held accountable.
The City Attorney’s investigation into whether Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s office illegally leaked a privileged legal memo to the press is still open—with no findings, no discipline, and no public accountability. Fielder returns to City Hall on June 29.
The document her office allegedly leaked was a confidential City Attorney memo warning that Mayor Lurie’s RESET Center, a sober center aimed at curbing public drug use, carried “very high legal risk.” It appeared in Mission Local on February 10, the day of the Board vote, hours before the final tally. Fielder voted no. The program passed 9-2 anyway. The RESET Center has since opened on Sixth Street in SoMa.
City Attorney David Chiu called the disclosure unlawful and warned that whoever did it could face removal from office. That investigation closed in on Fielder’s office as the likely source, the Chronicle reported in April. A Sunshine Ordinance request by political commentator Lee Edwards pulled the receipts into the open: on the day Mission Local published, the reporter was already texting a Fielder aide asking about “the legal risk thing” — phrasing that suggests she knew the memo’s contents before making contact.
Her chief of staff denied it. One aide left. Three months of medical leave later, none of it has been resolved.
What the Memo Said
The February 9 memo from Deputy City Attorney Brianna Voss went only to the full Board, the Mayor, the Sheriff, and the Director of Public Health. The following day it was reported in Mission Local. The memo concluded that the city planned to hold people at the RESET Center who were told they were not free to leave, without meeting state standards for a licensed detention facility — serious legal exposure, potential wrongful detention suits, ammunition for anyone who wanted to challenge the program in court.
Attorney-client privilege means the Board as a whole holds confidentiality over that advice, not individual members. Chiu’s February 13 letter made this explicit: only a full Board vote at a public meeting could waive the privilege. An individual supervisor or staffer giving the memo to a reporter wasn’t whistleblowing. It was a crime.
Of the 11 supervisors who received the document, two voted against the program. Those same two — Fielder and Connie Chan — had political incentive to make the city’s internal legal doubts public before the vote went through. Mission Local published the story with enough specificity that Chiu concluded in his letter that whoever leaked it had either “shared it directly with a Mission Local reporter or allowed them to photograph each page.”
The Texts, the Denial, the Aide Who Left
District 9 resident Lee Edwards filed a Sunshine Ordinance request for communications between Fielder’s office and Mission Local. What he got: texts showing Mission Local reporter Io Yeh Gilman texting a Fielder aide on February 10 — the day the story published — asking about “the legal risk thing” and whether “anyone other than Connie and Jackie” had discussed it during earlier Board discussion.
I do Sunshine requests so you don't have to! Jackie Fielder's office claims they are not the source of the leak of a confidential memo. But texts I obtained have Fielder's aide texting with the reporter who wrote the story, about the subject of the memo, on the day of the leak.
Edwards noted the texts indicated this was “not their only mode of comms.” In other words, the public records request only captured one channel but there were likely others.
On April 3, the Chronicle reported the City Attorney’s investigation had “closed in on Fielder’s office as the likely source,” citing a person familiar with the matter. That same day, chief of staff Sasha Gaona issued a flat denial: “The District 9 office did not provide the city attorney’s memo related to the RESET Center to the press.” Around the same period, Feng Han, one of Fielder’s four legislative aides, departed. Han told the Chronicle it was for “personal reasons.” Whether it was connected to the investigation has not been confirmed by any named source. Han has since been replaced by veteran legislative aide Sheila Chung Hagen.
She’s Back. The Investigation Isn’t Closed.
Fielder stopped attending Board meetings in mid-March. She was hospitalized in late March — the SF Standard described it as an acute personal health crisis — publicly considered resigning, and announced a leave through June 30. On May 1, she attended the May Day protest at SFO, where 25 people — including Board President Rafael Mandelman and Supervisor Connie Chan — were arrested for blocking traffic to the international terminal. Fielder left before the arrests.
San Francisco’s City Charter makes removing a sitting supervisor nearly impossible. A finding of official misconduct requires a three-fourths Board vote — 9 of 11 members — after a public Ethics Commission hearing.after a public Ethics Commission hearing. There is no automatic consequence waiting for her when she returns.
Jen Kwart, a City Attorney spokesperson, confirmed to the Chronicle on June 23 that the investigation is ongoing. No findings have been announced. No employee has been publicly disciplined. No motion to censure or remove Fielder has been filed.
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