SF Parks Alliance Collapse Leaves Residents and Community Groups Scrambling for Answers – And Money
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal, and what a mess. The San Francisco Parks Alliance has shut down after running out of money. It may have misspent more than $3.8 million. The organization had raised money for the city's green spaces, and it served as an umbrella organization for about 80 community groups that managed public parks and projects. Now, many of those organizations are left stranded and with their cash reserves wiped out.

What happened? We'll dive in and try to figure out what can be salvaged. It's all coming up next, right after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. You know something has gone horribly wrong when the chair of your board describes your nonprofit's financial situation as a, quote, dumpster fire in an email to a donor. But that's what happened to the San Francisco Parks Alliance. That's how bad it had gotten.

The fallout from the fire is going to reach across a web of community groups that were just trying to do something good for their local parks. The questions are now turning to the obvious things. Did someone abscond with the money that was supposed to be in the Parks Alliance bank account? Was it just bad accounting and mismanagement? Was it something stranger and worse? Joining us to break it all down first, we've got two local journalists. Joe Eskenazi is managing editor and columnist at Mission Local. Welcome, Joe.

Oh, thanks for having me. And we've got Michael Barba, a reporter covering government accountability and public safety with the San Francisco Chronicle. Welcome, Michael. Yeah, thank you so much. All right. So let's for people who haven't been paying attention to the Parks Alliance, how was the alliance created? Like, what was its purpose? Like, what was supposed to what was it actually supposed to do?

Well, the Parks Alliance is actually the latest iteration of a lot of community groups or nonprofits that have tried to help the city fundraise for the parks for decades now. And so basically it has two main functions. One of them is it acts as sort of a conduit for private funding to reach city projects. And then the other is that it acts as sort of a...

A bank for a lot of different community groups around the city that... A fiscal sponsor that's kind of holding their money. Exactly. It's called a fiscal sponsorship. And it holds money so that these groups can withdraw the dollars whenever they need it for really simple things, you know, if they want to...

buy supplies so that they can renovate their playground, things like that. They get reimbursed through the Parks Alliance. And also it's supposed to help them manage their books as well and sort of navigate the bureaucratic process.

So how many groups are we talking about? And were they all kind of the same or was there kind of a variety of different groups that were part of this thing? It's a variety of different groups. There's over 80 of them, I believe, that use the Parks Alliance or use the Parks Alliance as a fiscal sponsor. So they'll take care of playgrounds around the city. They'll take care of, you know, those beautiful tiled stairs that you might see. There's other groups that maintain habitats, you know,

around the city, uh, you know, uh, public spaces. Yeah. So, um, the staff and board, like, did it just have like a fairly traditional nonprofit structure where it's, you know, it's got an executive team and then it's got a board and just got a standard nonprofit structure. That's my understanding. Yes. Yeah. It had a, uh, a board, a pretty big board. Um, a lot of big names are on that board, um, or we're on that board. Um,

And also it had a longtime CEO who led the nonprofit until earlier this year. And it had a staff that grew over the years. And I understand that was to support some of these activations that the Parks Alliance was doing. So it was...

You know, not just supporting these infrastructure projects, but also doing things like cinema in the park. And so they were growing their staff to support these events. So what's the overall size of this place? Like how much money did they actually oversee? You know, I think like five years ago, they had a budget of more than $20 million.

But as the years went on, their budget was really shrinking and they were spending more money than they were taking in. And I think that really started to cause problems for them to the point where as of last year, if not earlier, they were having cash flow shortages again.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know if people have ever been to the ProPublica website called Nonprofit Explorer. You can look at the 990 forms, the forms that nonprofits have to file showing their kind of revenue expenses and their assets. And you can kind of see the trouble there, right? That their assets are really declining for the last five years. Liability is increasing. Their expenses are up. Their revenue is down. Joe Eskenazi, I mean, given that, given that it doesn't take...

I don't know, an accounting genius to see that there were some problems here. Why weren't, why didn't we know that the problems were as deep as they are until recently?

Well, the way this organization works, it might be hard to look and see the red flags quite as easily as with other organizations. If you are bringing a park online in year three, you could be raising funds for it in year one and year two and expending them in year three. And those all go on different balance sheets. So it looks very lopsided on the 990 tax forms. But to your point, Alexis, yes, exactly. If you go on ProPublica's website, which I did, you can look and see that...

that the Parks Alliance spent a great deal more money than it brought in every year but one since 2016. And you can see that the net assets were at a high watermark of almost $29 million in fiscal 2019 and dropped precipitously every year since.

from 29 to 17 to 13 to 9.6 to 5, and then in fiscal 2024, negative $600,000. So when you are talking about the board of directors, I do wonder what questions were being asked. I do wonder what questions were being asked because that's a pretty direct line.

So also, Joe, as I understood it, the Parks Alliance also took in city grants, right, in addition to fundraising on its own. So was there oversight from the city that might have revealed accounting problems or other things? I don't know that the city is going to routinely writ large take a look at everything that a nonprofit does. They certainly monitor how you spend the money in their grant.

So Michael's done great reporting on a real cardinal sin of nonprofits. You can't get people to give you money for Project A or Project B and then spend it on other things. And that appears to be exactly what happened. And, you know, people have copped to it in writing. And it was a great get for him to get that. I don't know that anybody has been so brazen or so desperate to do that with a city grant. Michael, tell us more about that reporting.

Um, yeah. So, well, first I just would like to say that the parks alliance it's, it's, it's core function. It wasn't so much that it was receiving a grant money from the city. It does receive grant money from the city, from departments like OEWD. Um, but mostly it's getting money workforce development. Sorry. Yes. Office of economic and workforce development. Um, but, but really it,

It's getting money from big donors and then acting as a pass through to give that money to the city. So the money, it's city dollars in the sense that it's money that's been promised to the city. Right. And so that's why it's important here with regard to the misspending. So, yeah, I got a copy of a memo or an email that was sent from the board chair to a

a big donor, basically explaining the dire financial situation that the Parks Alliance was in.

And the Parks Alliance was asking for more money. And in that context, they acknowledged that they had depleted $3.8 million that was earmarked for specific projects. And they apparently use that money, as far as we can tell, on their operating expenses. They say that the money was used all for, you know, mission related purposes. But still, this was money that was taken in for specific things.

things and apparently used to keep the Parks Alliance alive while it didn't have enough money to sustain itself. So to give the Parks Alliance maybe maximum credit here, the most generous interpretation of this is that they had money in an account and that money seemed like it could be spent and they weren't doing a good job of tracking what they were committed to in other places.

Is that your interpretation, Michael, or do you think that they knowingly spent the dollars on other things they weren't supposed to? I think we're still trying to figure that out.

But what we do know, at least according to the board chair and this email that I got, she says or alleges that the prior CEO and CFO were complicit in depleting restricted funds. I think that's the language she used. And so whether that was intentional or not.

is still unclear to me. And I think we're still trying to figure that out. What did that former CEO tell you? The former CEO says that he identified

I think the word he uses inconsistencies in, uh, financial reporting and their cash cash position, uh, in December, 2023. And he, uh, soon after reported it to the board, uh, they decided to, to fire the CFO. Yeah, exactly. They decided to fire the CFO, uh, and some other financial staff, I believe. And I think he says that, you know, the misconduct in his words ended there, uh,

So he's sort of blaming the CFO. The board is blaming him and the CFO for keeping the board in the dark. So there's a lot of blame being shifted around. There's plenty, plenty to go around. Joe, what do you make of it? I think we're all waiting to sift through the wreckage here. We're looking for the black box. And there are.

When you talk about whether this was incompetence or criminality, we can't say yet. But for the people who are on the receiving end of the problems, it's a difference without a distinction. Certainly how it's dealt with in a legal or other manner, you know, that's important. But, you know, there are people who are going to be hurt because of this. You know, the ones that you mentioned the most are criminals.

The people whose money was being held, you know, this is like a bank. If you can, you know, if you've ever seen It's a Wonderful Life, you know, George Bailey ran a savings and loan and there was a run on the savings and loan. And in this case, you know, it's the ordinary townspeople of Bedford Falls, I believe it was. Well, in this case, there's no money in the savings and loan now. And that means that these projects are imperiled.

We're going to talk with someone from one of those organizations right after the break. We're talking about the collapse of the San Francisco Parks Alliance, which was a group that was meant to really support the maintenance and upkeep and development of San Francisco's parks, open spaces and community groups.

We're joined by Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist with Mission Local, as well as Michael Barba, a reporter covering government accountability and public safety with the San Francisco Chronicle. We, of course, would love to hear from you. What are your questions about the San Francisco Parks Alliance shutting down? Or maybe you're part of one of those 80 groups that has relied on the Parks Alliance. What's your experience been? How are things going? You can

You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email your comments and questions to forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram. We're KQED Forum. Or you can head over to the Discord. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.

Support for Forum comes from the University of San Francisco School of Management. Celebrating 100 years of partnership with the Bay Area business community, the USF School of Management connects students to the city's vibrant culture, hands-on internships, and a wealth of career opportunities.

where AI and sustainability are integrated into every facet of business education, and where students bring innovation, ethics, and entrepreneurial leadership to a planet in need. The University of San Francisco School of Management. Change the world from here. Support for KQED Podcasts comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

They wield the power of the law to protect people's health, preserve magnificent places and wildlife, and advance clean energy to combat climate change. Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org. Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about the sudden collapse of the San Francisco Parks Alliance, a group that had

really been meant to serve community groups that were taking care of San Francisco's parks and open spaces. Joined by Michael Barba, a reporter covering government accountability and public safety with the San Francisco Chronicle, and Joe Eskenazi, managing editor and columnist with Mission Local. We're going to get to some of your calls with your questions or your experiences as part of a community group. The number, of course, is 866-733-6786. The email is forum.com.

Before the break, Joe was talking about the folks who were really directly affected by this are community groups who trusted and worked with the Parks Alliance. And we have a representative of one of those groups here. Ildiko Polanyi is executive director of Sutro Stewards.

Ildiko, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So first tell us what the stewards did and then we're going to talk about what happened. Sutro Stewards is a community partner that was fiscally sponsored by San Francisco Parks Alliance before they dissolved. And we do habitat restoration and trail maintenance on Mount Sutro. And how big is it? Like what's the org like? We have eight employees, four of whom are full-time, four part-time employees and

We host about 3,000 volunteers a year. We host 10 volunteer programs a month. There's close to five and a half miles of trails on Mount Sutro that are maintained and built by staff leading groups of volunteers. It's really hard, back-breaking, fun work digging in the dirt.

We have a native plant nursery where we collect seeds from plants that have evolved here in San Francisco and grow those plants to be planted out in the open space to expand the habitat for local wildlife.

We also have a health in nature program where we bring members of disadvantaged communities onto Mount Sutro for the healing powers of nature. It's so cool. It's kind of exactly the sort of thing you can imagine. You want community groups kind of stewarding this space, bringing in other people from the community. And you now have all been laid off. Yeah, we've all been laid off. On May 30th, everyone received a paycheck with a vacation payout.

So that was how we were alerted to the layoff. And then on Monday, I think it was June 2nd, we received official separation paperwork. And that's because in your group's particular case, you were technically employees of the SF Parks. Because we're fiscally sponsored, we are not a legal entity. We don't have 501c3 charitable tax status. So we can't open our own bank account. We can't

manage our own HR and payroll. So technically we were employees of San Francisco Parks Alliance. That function of San Francisco Parks Alliance, the fiscal sponsorship function, has been a really important way for neighbors to come together and make change in their neighborhoods. These are average people who are not accountants, they're not HR professionals, they're just wanting to put in a pretty bench with some nice native plants next to it or repair the broken swings that they're- They're not trying to get workers' comp insurance. No, no.

That function of SFPA has been really important for creating a city that is vibrant and beautiful to walk through and enjoy the public space. Before May 30th, did you...

or have any sense that there were problems? So, of course, when Michael Barber's reporting came out on April 28th, my heart sunk to the floor. And I could sort of see the writing on the wall. I have been the executive director of Sutro Stewards since 2020, and Parks Alliance has never been great as a fiscal sponsor. They seemed disorganized, disorganized.

Communication was not great. There would be changes that directly affected my work that wouldn't be communicated until the changes had happened.

Reporting was late, often inaccurate. And my strategy was always just to sort of keep my own shadow books, compare what I knew to what I was receiving from their financial reporting, and then work with them to get on the same page. And that, you know, that seemed to kind of work. So

I had thought a lot about switching fiscal sponsors, but as a small organization, there's always some other fire to put out, like needing to hire staff or working with our major partner, UCSF, storms on Mount Sutro that closed trails. UCSF technically owns most of the land that you're working on, right? Yeah, it's partially owned by SF Reckon Park as well. So UCSF owns 61 acres and then SF Reckon Park owns about 15 acres.

Let's bring in Denise in San Francisco. Welcome, Denise. You've got another experience here.

Well, first, thank you for your program. Preseda Valley Neighbors is a small park group that manages the arts and the work maintaining the landscaping of Preseda Park. We notice quite regularly there were oftentimes expenses that were not authorized on our expense statements. When we called our regional manager about it, who really were hard working as part of the San Francisco Parks Alliance,

They quickly took it out. But we did hear several bequests, both in terms of estates and donations that were never reported on our financials, which we were very frustrated and not happy.

getting those on our income statements. We are, you know, grant recipients of community of California challenge grants, and those were fine in terms of their restrictions. We are looking forward to

Moving forward with a new fiscal sponsor of Presida Eyes Muralist, our local diverse, amazing art and cultural park or organization with whom we've worked with since Carnival. Hey, Denise, can I ask you one quick question? What's an example of an expense that showed up on your accounting? One item listed as a $700 parking fee.

which we knew parking fees were never part of our agreements in expenses. And when we called our regional manager, she was also surprised. My thought is that the regional managers had no overseeing power in looking at what was being coded into the group accounts. Okay.

So the stink came from above and not from the regional managers. I appreciate your perspective, Denise, and best luck with the Proceed to Eyes, another great organization. Michael, is that similar to what you've heard from other groups? Or what are other groups telling you about their interactions and problems with the alliance? I think the biggest problem, and actually the reason I learned about all this, was...

that these groups were having trouble getting reimbursed for their expenses. So this is a really core duty of the parks alliances to, to reimburse these small neighborhood organizations for their expenses. And folks were having to wait months for, um, reimbursements as low as a hundred dollars, um,

Which, you know, they had money saved up at the Parks Alliance. You know, these groups had tens of thousands of dollars that was supposed to be there, $100,000. And they're going and saying, hey, can I get a $100 reimbursement for this community thing I did? And it was taking the Parks Alliance a long time to give them money back. Ilta Coach, you experience any of that?

Yes, I did experience some of that. About a year ago, there was a period of maybe two to three months where our simple reimbursement requests would take weeks to months to get processed.

One thing that I would also like to highlight is, you know, we've talked a lot about sort of what led to the collapse of Parks Alliance. But now here we are. Parks Alliance no longer exists and the impact that community groups are experiencing. And when I say community groups, I'm talking about over 80 groups across the city of San Francisco who...

have strong ties in their local neighborhoods. So it's not just the groups that do the trash pickup or the mural painting. It's also the people who use these spaces. And now we have no way to operate. So I'm laid off, my staff is laid off, and currently I'm scrambling, like working for free to try to find a new fiscal sponsor. So this is what many groups are doing. We've been calling ourselves the Community Partner Network, which is something that SFPA sort of set up.

And there's a lot of power and potential in having –

a cohesive network of these parks groups that can work together, network together, advocate together for parks and open spaces in San Francisco. And now because we're in this emergency situation, we are organizing together, but people are also sort of going their separate ways. So I see a real need for a replacement to San Francisco Parks Alliance. And I'm also like,

supremely disappointed that it happened this way. Not only that Parks Alliance mismanaged money, if we're being generous, and spent in Sutra Stewart's case $187,000 that we had in reserves, but that from the day of the reporting and the fallout, April 28th, Michael Barb is reporting, the response has been like a whodunit.

rather than a what is the impact if San Francisco Parks Alliance dissolves and how can we prevent harm? So what I would like to see is a focus on moving forward and

I think that those who are responsible should be held accountable, but I think equal amount of attention and focus needs to go into how do we protect this critical function that SFPA provided through the fiscal sponsorship program and even through, you know, raising funds for park infrastructure projects managed by SF Rec and Park. Because if we don't, the quality of public space in the city of San Francisco will decline.

I take your point. That said, listener Johnny writes in, why isn't the SF Parks and Rec Department doing what the Alliance was tasked with doing? Joe, I want to come to you on this because...

It does get at the very kind of core structure of what SF Parks Alliance was doing. And it also, I think, brings up Phil Ginsberg, who is head of Recreation and Parks in San Francisco. And that has worked closely. What do we know about what Phil Ginsberg has known about what's going on when he knew it?

So I'm glad you asked this. And this is the fundamental question that we need to answer. And I'm glad that Ms. Polonyi and Denise are here because they illustrate the need for an organization like this to do some of the things that it did. Because of, you know, tax requirements and fiscal requirements, you can't just give money to the city. And money doesn't move around just like, you know, the coins in Uncle Scrooge's money bin. You need to have a fiscal sponsor. I'm glad Ms. Polonyi is here because my understanding is that, you know,

uh parks alliance didn't just act as a bank so to speak but there was something of a 10 interest on the money that you had there so the handling fee uh was very steep

And, uh, and, and as, as she has said, uh, the service wasn't great before it was curtailed altogether. Now, uh, to the listener's question as to why the city can't just do this, there are legal requirements about that. There are also, I think that, you know, again, I have nothing but praise for Michael's reporting and he's done a fantastic job here. Uh,

I would be wary of allowing the people in the rec and park department to frame this as what did they know and when did they know it when we need to take a deeper look at the entire raison d'etre of the parks alliance.

There have always been nonprofits like this that raised money for worthy causes and helped out city departments with things that a government can't reasonably legally do. On the other hand, this is an organization that has had a very dodgy last couple of years. They were the ones that were serving as a slush fund for Muhammad Nuru's pizza fund, you know, holding on to his money.

so that he could have clandestine big parties and earning a 10% cut, it would seem. They were getting money before the government in a very strange deal for a Ferris wheel in the park.

Their CEO was writing a mafia letter to a sitting member of the board of supervisors saying that any criticism of his organization could result in the defunding of a playground. You know, essentially, there were city audits that said that the Parks Alliance was acting like a city operated fund without the city oversight. That's what we need to get at right now is the ancillary, but perhaps central, really, function. Who was it serving?

What was the purpose of the Parks Alliance? And to get to the point here, in my reporting, I've talked to people that had pending contracts before recreation and parks. They were hoping to do business with the government. And they were told, in their words, by people that worked at the Parks Department up to and including Phil Ginsberg, that they needed to donate money to the Parks Alliance. Mm-hmm.

Uh, it is untoward at best to ask people to donate money to your, uh, adjunct nonprofit when they have pending business before you. And that's one of the things that I hope will come out in the, uh, in, in the audits of the department and of the nonprofit. Hmm.

Ildiko?

And a lot of – many of those corporations don't want to pay their fair share in taxes. So I think until they come forth like Airbnb and Lyft and Uber and maybe set aside some of these lawsuits that they have against the city and instead pay the taxes that they've – that we are owed, you know, revenue needs to be raised for parks. Yeah.

We're talking about the San Francisco Parks Alliance shutting down, what it means for the organizations that have been working in our parks and open spaces. We're joined by Ildiko Polanyi, who's executive director of Sutro Stewards.

Also have Joe Eskenazi on the line, managing editor and columnist for Mission Local, and Michael Barba, a reporter covering government accountability and public safety with The Chronicle, of course. We're also taking your questions. Maybe you're part of a park group or community organization that relied on the Parks Alliance. Maybe you have questions about what's happened recently.

with the Parks Alliance and it's shutting down, give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786. You can email your questions to forum at kqed.org. You can find us on social media, Blue Sky, Instagram, etc. You know what? Let's go to Erica in San Francisco. Welcome, Erica.

Hi. I just wanted to tell you we're involved with a community garden in San Francisco. And everybody got an email in 23 announcing from the COO that they were opening two other, the Alliance, from the Parks Alliance, they were opening two other 501c3s. One called...

San Francisco Parks Foundation and one called San Francisco Parks Forward. And I haven't seen any reporting on them since that...

I'm just throwing that out. And then also, on a Google search of the COO, he's listed as a realtor for many years with a very large realty firm in San Francisco as well. Through the same year, I don't know, you know, it's not a city agency, but he had more than one job, basically.

So I just wanted to share that. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. You know, this is interesting. Michael, maybe I'll come to you on this. Back in 23, there was this announcement, you know, San Francisco Parks Forward will advocate a 501c4 and the San Francisco Parks Foundation will raise funds. It'd be a C3. Did those things just get paused, essentially, along the way? I mean, there's announcements about it you can find, but...

But then it doesn't seem like anything happened? Yeah, I actually don't know. I was not aware of those things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe nothing happened. That's why. Got another...

comment or actually a couple comments here. This one is just basic. You know, Erin Peskin, Diane writes, Erin Peskin has been calling out the Parks Alliance for years. Supervisor Connie Chan, his former legislative aide and now District 1 supervisor, also took on the cause. Why did it take so long for this story to break? I was a co-founder of the Women's Building, which was the fiscal agent back in

in the 70s to 90s for most of the Sentinel women's services, such as Women Against Rape, La Casa de las Madres, and the Women's Foundation. We all knew you don't co-mingle funds. I mean, this does, you know, we don't even need to talk about it. It does seem like it's accounting 101, maybe even before. It's pre-accounting to know you don't do that. We're talking about the San Francisco Parks Alliance shutting down, what it means for the city's parks and open spaces.

Joe Eskenazi from Mission Local, Michael Barba from the San Francisco Chronicle, and Ildiko Polanyi, executive director with Sutro Stewards, also here in the house. We're going to get to more of your calls and comments after the break. If you can't get through on the phones, you can try forum at kqed.org. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more. ♪

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Welcome back to Forum. Alexis Madrigal here. We're talking about the mess at the San Francisco Parks Alliance, which has shut down. And kind of people are combing through what happened inside that organization, which has supported 80 community groups across the city today.

Joined by journalists Joe Eskenazi and Michael Barba, as well as Ildiko Polanyi, executive director with the Sutro Stewards. I want to add another voice in the conversation. Nicola Miner was a donor with the San Francisco Parks Alliance. Welcome. Hello. Thanks so much for joining us. You know, the Baker Street Foundation donated about $3 million to the San Francisco Parks Alliance. What was that money intended for? Um...

It was intended for playgrounds and a dog run at Crane Cove Park in Dogpatch. And when did you find out that that money wasn't necessarily going to that intended use?

Uh, two weeks ago, we had actually made the donation quite a long time ago. We had agreed to it in 2020 and made it over a couple of years. Um, but two weeks ago, we found out in a letter from San Francisco parks Alliance that they'd misappropriated the funds and spent it on general operating expenses. Wow. So over a few years, $3 million goes into this organization's bank account. And then a couple of weeks ago, they literally just send you a letter that says, sorry, it's gone.

Yeah, and it's not like we it's not like they couldn't have told us that at any time. And it's not like we didn't have any contact between the donations. And today they just didn't tell us. Well, they actively tried to raise money from us for general operating expenses, not telling us they'd already misappropriated our funds. Wow. Did they actually even give you an accounting of what the money was spent on? No. No.

So you don't even know where that money went at all? I have no idea where that money went. In fact, but one thing they did tell us is they do have half a million dollars. They also gave money to the Silver Terrace playground to rehab that playground. And they say that they have half a million dollars from that donation in restricted funds at the moment. So I don't know what's going to happen with that either.

I mean, in your time in philanthropic causes, have you run into something similar to this in the city? No. I mean, one of the issues, you know, even though we do our due diligence, there's a lot of trust involved when you donate to an organization that they're going to do what they say they're going to do. And we've had great success in the past with most organizations that we've partnered with, including actually San Francisco Corpse Alliance. But I don't know what happened over the past five years. Mm hmm.

I mean, it's also interesting because it's almost like if you were donating to an organization that you were sort of expecting was going to do a bunch of operational things, you might provide a different level of scrutiny than when they're basically acting as like a pass-through for your funds, yeah? Yeah. I mean, you can't directly give to Parks and Rec, so you have to give through...

another organization uh so we didn't have any real options besides san francisco parks alliance we had been part of a bunch of other um park building initiatives including i think it was called let's play that redid a lot of playgrounds all over san francisco so we gave to the tunnel tops and the presidio and that worked beautiful yeah so what happens now

I have no idea what happens now. I'm hoping they do a forensic accounting. We find out what happened to the money. I know that philanthropists are looking at putting together a different fund to help maybe the organizations, the small community organizations that are the real tragedy in all this. I mean, it's bad enough that they

took a playground away from Dogpatch. But I went to the hearings last week and just to see the kind of damage they did to small communities around the city is the real tragedy. So hopefully we can find a way to get some money together to help those organizations. And what about you all? I mean, do you want to see an investment beyond the forensic accounting industry?

Do you want to see? Yeah, I definitely want to see an investigation. I really do want to know what happened, not only because I'm angry, but also so that in the future, maybe I can understand better how to structure my donations so that they go exactly to where they go. Like, like, where did the problem happen? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Nicola Minor, thank you so much for for joining us and providing your perspective here this morning. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you.

Michael, let's talk a little bit about the structural piece of this. I mean, is there a better way for cities to manage this type of arrangement? Or is it just that, like, if you have an organization that, for whatever reason, begins to act as a bad actor, then it's very difficult to rein them in? Or, like, what are the possible structures that need to go into place here? Well, I mean...

I think the question is, what did the city really know? And when did they know it? And why didn't they do anything sooner? You know, I think the critics of the Parks Alliance have sort of been, they feel vindicated by,

In a sense that they've been calling for the city to separate itself from the organization for five years now since, you know, the Muhammad Nuru scandal happened. And so now it's sort of a I told you so moment. But that said, like...

In my reporting, as far as I've been able to figure out here, the first time that the city found out something was going wrong more recently at the Parks Alliance was last summer when Phil Ginsberg, the head of Reckon Park, learned in his words that the Parks Alliance was cash poor.

So they were having dire cash flow shortages. They were hitting up donors like Nicola Minor, her foundation for money, just to survive. They were saying, if we do not get an influx of cash, we're going to have to close down.

So the city, um, it has various grant agreements with the parks Alliance. It has an MOU, uh, with them. Uh, it, it realized that the parks Alliance wasn't filing all the required financial disclosure paperwork that it was supposed to be filing. So rec and park, um,

said, hey, Parks Alliance, can you assure us that the funds you are supposed to be holding on our behalf are actually secure? And the Parks Alliance was at least delaying in providing those responses. And I don't know that they ever handed over some of these financial disclosures. If they did, it was very late. So I think the city could sort of...

The question is, should the city have acted sooner in maybe halting ties with the Parks Alliance? Because that's ultimately what they decided to do. Once they realized that the problem wasn't just a cash flow shortage, it was actually restricted funds being misused.

We've got a comment. The former director of programs at SF Parks Alliance has written in, that's Amanda Montez, to say this.

Amanda Montez writes,

I implemented new financial tracking systems and raised these serious concerns with CEO Drew Becker and in the 2017 audit, specifically noting that Park Partners program funds were inappropriately mixed with the organization's general capital and used as leverage for loans.

Joe Scannazzi, I mean, let's just take this comment at face value for now.

The problems, clearly, some people inside the organization feel the problems go back, you know, we're talking eight years or more now. Well, first of all, I think I'm echoing Michael Barber's thoughts, which is Amanda Montez, I'll take your call off air. And I think so, yes, when you have people who work for the organization, you're

making on the record claims like this, you have big problems. And I think that Michael's 100 percent right that that that there is a separation between I told you this was a rotten organization and I anticipated this level of of potential malfeasance. But I think that both within the organization and I didn't know you were going to have that quote from Ms. Montez, which I think illustrates this. And within the city, there was a very laissez faire situation.

attitude towards an organization that clearly there were things not right there. You know, we went over the financials earlier. You have people trying to ring the bell. The board of this organization is clearly, you know, has hands off the wheel. And the city, while there are audits and reports that say that it could use more scrutiny, there doesn't seem to be any. So I do see a pattern here. You know,

to miss miners, uh, question of, of when this has happened before another nonprofit that imploded because of, uh, you know, alleged wrongdoing was SF safe, which was worked out of the police department. So if you have an, an organization working out of the police department, literally working out of the police department and this organization, which was, you know, uh, run and staffed by, uh, politicos and their families and other involved people in the city, uh,

The call is coming from inside the house, Alexis. That's how things go wrong in San Francisco. That's why nothing happened until until it was too late, because these were very connected people who worked from within the halls of power.

You know, a listener writes, and we've got a couple of questions on this, and Michael, I'll take this to you first, I think. One listener writes, what is being done to hold the board of directors of the alliance responsible? Another listener writes, and this is, I would say, adjacent, has anyone obtained the board meeting minutes and gone through them to identify false statements?

Taken together, it's sort of like the board of directors is kind of the first line of defense, or at least it's supposed to be because they're on the hook legally for a lot of things that happen in a place like this. Of course, if they're lied to by the executive staff, then maybe that's a cover for them. So what do we know about what's happening at that level, Michael, aside from the fact that I believe the Parks Alliance has hired some folks to help them, like lawyers and things?

Yeah.

the controller's office, the city attorney's office is also investigating and the board of supervisors is planning to hold a hearing where they have subpoenaed the board treasurer to appear and also have subpoenaed the last CEO of the Parks Alliance, which is the person who came in to sort of

try to right the ship and the longtime former CEO, Drew Becker, to appear. So that's one way that the board of directors could be held to account here. Another is potentially a lawsuit. I don't know the specifics, but theoretically they could be held liable in some way for the funds that all these different community groups are out.

A couple of listeners kind of are challenging the whole kind of system by which these funds have been allocated. You know, one listener writes, one of the things I haven't heard touched on yet is equity. When it comes to significant donations from wealthy individuals, the fund has been used to keep resources in particular neighborhoods where beautiful parks have been established with donors receiving tax breaks. These donations are not fully benefiting the public as they're not accessible to many San Francisco residents who could use more access to parks and beautiful playgrounds in their neighborhoods.

Another listener writes in similar vein, I'm a worker in the parks. It's about wealthy donors getting what they want and Phil Ginsburg allowing it. Look into Citi Fields Foundation. Another hot tip for you, Michael and Joe. Ildiko, so what happens next for Sutro Stewards? Like,

Obviously, you've mentioned that you're trying to find another fiscal sponsor. You're out, I think you said $180,000. $87,000. $187,000. Can you rebuild? Like if you're able to find other donors and a new sponsor, does Sutro Stewards just kind of bounce back or what has been lost? We are rebuilding. Yeah.

We are currently on pause and we are working as quickly as we can to reopen our operations. We're going to be transferring to Livable City as a fiscal sponsor. And they've been really prompt and really responsive working with us.

And I'm hoping to have all of our staff onboarded again by next week. The response from the community has been so touching, so moving. People have really come forward. It shows how much they value the experience of being able to walk in the middle of a forest in the middle of a city. And this is something I really echo what that said.

writer that said about equity because not everybody has easy access to Mount Sutro and it is in a fairly wealthy corner of the city and so I really agree that it is important to fund our parks so that that money can be allocated equally and when we put it in the hands of private donors then there's a prioritization of what those donors want

versus what the entire city of San Francisco needs. As those donors, not to say that their hearts aren't in the right place and they're like really wanting to do good for the city. I mean, I appreciate that generosity. But again, I think when we get back to the question of structure and where do we go from here, I think about Sutra Stewards. I'm working really hard for Sutra Stewards, but I also think about the entire city of San Francisco and the Community Partner Network.

And what I see, what I envision is that there is a separation between fundraising private donations for parks projects and community members coming together for parks projects. In other words, there would be more tax revenue raised for SF Rec and Parks that they can really manage themselves.

those resources internally and not have to rely on private donations and a private nonprofit to help distribute that and collect that. And then there would be a fiscal sponsorship program for neighbors to come together and make positive change in their neighborhoods. Yeah.

We had an interesting call to the line. We're not going to be able to get to it, but caller Jim wanted to note that a process has begun in which a trustee has been appointed to look for the money at San Francisco Parks Alliance. Last comment to, and we don't want to skip over another party that's been harmed in this, listener writes to say, the collapse of San Francisco Parks Alliance isn't just a scandal, it's a heartbreak and a layoff.

I worked there until April alongside 40 incredibly talented people, grant writers, community organizers, public space producers. Now there are zero employees. It's a whole ecosystem of care and creativity wiped out by a board and leadership team that failed to protect the people doing the work.

No severance, no safety net, just silence. The public sees headlines about missing millions. We see friends who can't pay rent. Partners we build trust with left in the dark. SFPA wasn't just a nonprofit. It was a workplace where people believed in what they were doing. Well, this is a mess as we...

said at the top. Thanks for helping us sort through it. We've been talking about, of course, the San Francisco Parks Alliance shutting down and what that means for our city's parks and open spaces and community groups that really had relied on this organization for funding and operational support. We've been joined this morning by Joe Eskenazi, the managing editor and columnist at Mission Local. Joe, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

Thank you for having me. This is, you've asked the right questions. Thanks, Joe. We've also been joined by Michael Barba, reporter covering government accountability and public safety at the San Francisco Chronicle. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. We've also been joined by Ildiko Polanyi, executive director of Sutro Stewards. Thank you so much, Ildiko. Thank you so much for having me. Earlier, we were joined by Nicola Miner, a donor to the San Francisco Parks Alliance Foundation.

Thanks for all of your calls and your comments as well. Really appreciate your contributions to the program this morning. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with Mina Kim.

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