Urban Corps of San Diego County officials scrubbed the name of founder Sam Duran from the front of the main office after he reported the then-executive director for putting the nonprofit’s staff to work on his own property.
For more than a decade, the administrative headquarters just west of Old Town was named the Sam Duran Center — an honor bestowed on Duran after he retired as the organization’s longtime chief executive.
Urban Corps leaders said scrapping Duran’s name from the building was part of a long-planned renovation and repainting plan implemented by former CEO Kyle Kennedy without approval from the board of directors.
They acknowledge they may not replace the lettering.
“The removal of the sign was not a board action, but rather a decision made by our last CEO during recent renovations and remodeling,” interim Chief Executive Officer Anne Bernstein said in a statement.
“Future signage will likely focus on highlighting the organization’s mission of serving the youth of San Diego County,” she said.
Duran is now 88 and has relocated to San Antonio, Texas, where he is undergoing chemotherapy to treat prostate cancer. He said he was disappointed to hear that his name was taken off the building.
“When I first heard, I said ‘No, they wouldn’t do that,’” he said in a telephone interview. “That’s getting a little bit ridiculous — but of course they have been ridiculous for a long time.”
Duran said Urban Corps of San Diego County should have more important issues to manage than what he sees as retaliating against him for pointing out an obvious lapse in management and nonprofit governance.
“For them to take it off bothers me,” he said. “It’s not that I need my name recognized — I am who I am — but that is just petty. They’ve got nothing better to do than that?”
Kyle Kennedy’s house being renovated by Urban Corps staff in San Diego is pictured in June. (Ana Ramirez / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Duran played a key role in disclosing that Kennedy had directed dozens of Urban Corps employees to renovate an investment property in the Shelltown neighborhood of San Diego.
Duran told The San Diego Union-Tribune earlier this summer that he stumbled upon the renovation during a visit to San Diego last year. He reported the work to several Urban Corps officials, including Bernstein, and said Bernstein asked him not to alert the board of directors.
Bernstein denied the accusation that she sought to hide the information from the board.
The misuse of the nonprofit’s employees was eventually brought to the board last year, and an independent investigation was opened.
Investigators found Kennedy improperly deployed up to 26 people to work on the house and some workers lived on the property throughout the months-long job. They also said Kennedy hid the work from the board — and from Urban Corps accountants — and impeded their examination.
“Kyle Kennedy’s defensive responses in his investigative interview created barriers to understanding his actions,” the final report said.
The board of directors did not fire Kennedy from his $210,000-a-year job. Instead, he was placed on a 90-day improvement plan. The decision prompted two members of the board to resign in protest.
But Kennedy left the $20 million charity after the Union-Tribune first reported the arrangement in June. He said he was let go; Urban Corps of San Diego County said he left by mutual agreement.
After a hillside behind homes on Trieste Drive in Carlsbad suffered storm-related damage, a crew of Urban Corps of San Diego County worked around the area on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. (Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
After he departed, Kennedy told the Union-Tribune that charity officials had been putting employees to work on their own properties for years — including Bernstein.
“Everybody at Urban Corps was aware of it, except the board,” he said.
In a statement later, Bernstein acknowledged that Urban Corps were put to work at her home as well.
“I hired a crew for a small job to paint the siding on my house,” she said, adding, “I paid fully for these services out of pocket.”
Charity officials said putting employees to work on their bosses’ properties benefited workers by getting them experience and a paycheck. But experts in nonprofit governance said the practice was unethical at best, and potentially illegal if not properly reported for tax purposes.
“This is pretty outrageous,” said May L. Harris, a San Diego attorney whose law firm specializes in nonprofit legal work. “It really is the fox in the henhouse. This is a classic case of personal inurement or personal benefit that is prohibited for any 501(c)(3) organization.”
A Chicano Park mural depicting seven well-respected Latinos, including Sam M. Duran, on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (Michael Ho / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The Urban Corps of San Diego County’s main office is located on Jefferson Street, west of Interstate 5 and south of Interstate 8. The campus was christened the Sam Duran Center after Duran retired in 2012.
The designation was one of several high-profile recognitions Duran earned following his 23 years at the helm of the jobs and life skills-building organization.
In addition to having the Urban Corps facility named after him, Duran received ceremonial keys to three different cities in San Diego County. His image also appears in one of the renowned murals in Chicano Park celebrating local Latino community leaders.