Mayoral candidate Ellen Lee Zhou sues San Francisco to get her city job back

SAN FRANCISCO — 3-time San Francisco mayoral candidate Ellen Lee Zhou is a professionally trained social worker and used to work as a behavioral health clinician at the City's Department of Public health for over 10 years. She has been out of work for over two years due to the mandate issued by the City during the pandemic to require all city employees to get COVID vaccinations. Zhou recently filed a lawsuit against the City to get her job back.

As the only Republican mayoral candidate in the upcoming November 5 election, Zhou has always been asked by her supporters who are the other mayoral candidates that she supported and recommended to vote as the 2nd and 3rd choices in the race.

"Any candidate but London Breed," Zhou said when she was interviewed by Wind Newspaper. Zhou said there were reasons and background behind her recommendation against Breed.

13 mayoral candidates are running for the seat in the upcoming election. Zhou said all 12 candidates including herself decided to file papers to run for mayor because all of them have wanted to contribute for the city and agreed that Breed, who has been the mayor for the past six years, has led San Francisco to a wrong direction and made the City as a globally-known city for drug addicts, open drug market, car break-ins, homelessness, dirty streets, violence against Asians, empty-stores downtown and many more.

"Are we truly living better than six years ago? If not, it's time for change. Despite increased tax revenue, our city has seen a rise in crime under the current administration. It's clear we need new leadership, new ideas, and a fresh approach to rebuild our beloved city," Zhou said Breed has not been honest in telling the public about facts of San Francisco.

"I'm a lifelong San Franciscan, the only woman and only graduate of SF public schools in this race." Breed wrote in her candidate statement which was challenged by Zhou in June to the Department of Elections. Zhou said everyone knew that Breed's statement was not based on facts and showed her dishonesty.

Zhou is a woman and was educated in public schools all her life in San Francisco from Newcomer School when she first came to the city as a new and young immigrant from China to San Francisco State University earning her bachelor and master degrees in social work.

Breed's campaign responded to Wind Newspaper in June and insisted that there were no mistakes in her candidate statement. “London Breed is the only woman running for mayor who was not storming the Capitol on January 6th, like Ellen Lee Zhou.” wrote Joe Arellano, campaign spokesman for Breed.

Zhou first ran for San Francisco Mayor in 2018. She received 9,521 votes and was ranked 5th behind Breed who won, Mark Leno, Jane Kim, and Angela Alioto.

In 2019, Zhou ran again to challenge Breed. Zhou became the second highest voted candidate (24,667 votes) behind Breed who was successfully re-elected and received 125,200 votes.

Zhou was recently interviewed by Wind Newspaper in the Walter Lum Place alley by Portsmouth Square in Chinatown at noon time on October 21 which was a Monday.

The entire alley was seen garbage scattered all over on the street and sidewalk like cardboards, empty lunch boxes, plastic bags, papers, catalog directories, and more. The street signs in the alley indicated that no parking was allowed from 2am to 6am on all Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for street sweeping.

"Where is our public money?" Zhou said and pointed at the garbage on the Walter Lum Place alley. "If the streets were really swept between 2am to 6am on Monday, there should not be that much garbage here in the alley at noon today," Zhou said. "The City under Breed has spent more and more money, but the services have not been provided."

One of the concerns among members of the Asian community in recent years has been the crime and violence against them. The San Francisco Police Department has been short 500 officers since the pandemic. Due to the mandate issued by the City under Breed's administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, several dozens of police officers, who did not get required vaccinations, were terminated or resigned.

Zhou was one of the former city employees to be terminated in 2022 under the City's COVID-19 Vaccination Policy. The policy ended on August 23, 2023.

In the past two to three years, a large number of lawsuits were filed suing the City of San Francisco for wrongful termination and violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Zhou said Breed should rehire former city employees and avoid the huge legal cost of handling massive lawsuits.

On October 23, 2024, a federal jury awarded six former BART employees over a million dollars each in their lawsuit against BART for wrongful termination during the pandemic when they refused to get COVID vaccinations. All six plaintiffs in the BART case are Christians and were denied a religious exemption for COVID vaccinations during the pandemic.

Zhou, who is a Christian, was in a similar circumstance. She filed several complaints related to her termination in the past two years and received a green light on September 3, 2024 from the California Civil Rights Department with an immediate right to sue her employer for losing her job. Zhou then filed her papers immediately at the San Francisco Superior Court to sue the City on September 5, 2024.

According to the filings in the lawsuit, Zhou started working at the City's Department of Human Services Agency as a Senior Social Worker in January 2004. She was promoted to the Behavioral Clinician position in February 2006 with the City's Department of Public Health until her termination on September 22, 2022.

Zhou filed a request for religious exemption on October 25, 2021 in response to the City's COVID-19 Vaccination Policy. Her request was denied and was placed on administrative leave for nearly a year until she was officially terminated in September 2022. "The Defenders did not discuss with Plaintiff or offer Plaintiff any alternative accommodations," the complaint stated.

Zhou is seeking damages for the violation of her civil rights, compensatory damages, equitable relief including full reinstatement with full back pay and cost of legal actions.

The City Attorney's Office headed by David Chiu represents the City as a dependent in all those vaccination related lawsuits.

The City Attorney's Office had filed documents in court in response to Zhou's suit that the City demanded Zhou's complaint be dismissed and requested the case to be removed to federal court on October 3 citing the case was related to alleged federal civil rights violations.

Jen Kwart, spokeswoman of the City Attorney's Office, did not provide further information related to Zhou and other similar lawsuits because the cases were ongoing. "Several of these matters have been consolidated together so it would be difficult for me to determine exactly how many there are," said Kwart.

The Breed's campaign office did not immediately respond to a request for comment by press time.