Meltdown at SF Parks Nonprofit Spurs a Funding Freeze and Push for City Audit

Updated 11:51 a.m. Friday

It’s been a rocky couple of weeks for the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and its nonprofit affiliate.

On Friday morning, Mayor Daniel Lurie directed city departments to pause any outstanding grants and not enter into any new agreements with the San Francisco Parks Alliance, halting city funding for the prominent nonprofit that raises funds for the city’s open spaces.

The freeze comes as City Attorney David Chiu and Controller Greg Wagner announced a public integrity review of the Parks Alliance’s finances following “widespread media reports of financial mismanagement and improper use of restricted funding.”

And earlier this week, Supervisor Jackie Fielder introduced a motion calling for an official audit of the parks department, which she said has not been subject to a thorough financial and equity review in over a decade.

The move on Tuesday to evaluate the department, which supervisors could vote on as soon as next week, came just a day after the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the city’s District Attorney’s Office had launched a criminal investigation into the Parks Alliance.

The organization, which Fielder called “a magnet and a who’s who in the city for very powerful people,” faces a mounting financial crisis, and recently admitted to misspending at least $3.8 million.

“With all of the mistrust in city government from San Franciscans, I think it’s all the more important for the Recreation and Parks Department to undertake this audit as questions surrounded their affiliated nonprofits,” Fielder, who chairs the board’s Government Audit and Oversight Committee, told KQED.

She said the audit is intended, in part, to investigate the department’s financial ties to the nonprofit.

“One thing that we’re going to look into with the audit is any and all financial and in-kind relationships with the SF Parks Alliance, including but not limited to the special restricted funds for the general manager and the Recreation and Park Commission,” she said.

The review of the Parks Alliance’s finances by the city attorney and controller, meanwhile, is looking into those restricted funds that the nonprofit has raised through agreements with the parks department and the Port of San Francisco.

“The public reports of financial mismanagement at the Parks Alliance are extremely troubling,” Chiu said in a statement. “Any contributions meant to benefit the public should be used for that purpose. We are working together with the Controller to assess compliance with our agreements and ensure transparency.”

The SF Standard also reported that four former top executives of the Parks Alliance received bonuses last year, even as their organization was racking up a prodigious deficit.

Fielder said the parks department was “not happy” about the proposed audit.”

“They took issue with some of the claims, but I stand by every single one of them, and I hope that they just cooperate with the audit,” she said, expressing confidence that more developments would surface around the Parks Alliance’s ties to the department.

Tamara Aparton, a parks spokesperson, said the department operates transparently, with oversight from its commission, the Controller’s Office and the Board of Supervisors.

“We welcome public inquiry and are happy to share all relevant information — much of which is already available through a simple legislative or public document search,” she told KQED in an email.

This isn’t the first time the Parks Alliance, which operates independently from the parks department but is closely linked to it, has been mired in controversy. In 2020, Mohammed Nuru, the city’s former chief of public works, funneled nearly $1 million in donations from various city contractors into a Parks Alliance account that he used as his personal slush fund. Two years later, Nuru was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years in federal prison.

In 2021, the Board of Supervisors issued a subpoena to obtain financial transactions between the Alliance and the parks department, after Supervisor Connie Chan raised concerns that the nonprofit’s donations were unduly influencing the department to invest in certain neighborhoods over others.

The Alliance did not respond to KQED’s request for comment.

The most recent revelations about the organization follow a series of scandals involving multiple city-funded nonprofits accused of misusing city funds or unfairly awarding grants based on personal connections.

Fielder, who represents much of the Mission District and Bernal Heights, said she also hoped the audit would scrutinize some of projects the parks department is currently pursuing, including a waiver its general manager and the mayor recently secured to fundraise $12.5 million for the redevelopment of Sue Bierman Park in the city’s wealthy Financial District.

“In my district, at the Mission Recreation Center, there is at least one drinking fountain that is inoperable due to its lead levels,” she said. “It’s not something that would be accepted in other parts of San Francisco that are just better resourced.”

It’s this kind of disparity that Fielder hopes the audit will address.

“While the Mission Rec Center has a defunct drinking fountain, a whole downtown park is getting an entire renovation,” she said. “I just want, in this audit, to ensure that our city’s public resources are equitably allocated to San Franciscans across the city, not just the ones who live downtown or in traditionally well-served neighborhoods.”