Representatives of the SF Parks Alliance failed to show up at a Board of Supes oversight hearing into the finances of the collapsing nonprofit, spurring Sups. Shamann Walton and Jackie Fielder to call for subpoenas.
Robert Ogilvie, the CEO of the Parks Alliance, told Walton’s office by email May 20 that he would attend the hearing, records show.
But as the hearing opened, Ogilvie wasn’t there. Neither was the former CEO, Drew Becher, who was in charge during some of the period that is now under investigation by the city attorney and the district attorney.
The alliance also failed to answer written questions that Walton sent May 13. The letter notes:
Specifically, please provide my office with SFPA’s balance sheet for each and every organization for which SFPA serves as the fiscal sponsor showing all available funds and any funds “borrowed” by SFPA from said funds. I note that there are some 80 such organizations listed on SFPA’s website. Further, please provide evidence that the remaining funds in the amount of $2,275,000 donated to SFPA specifically for the Port of San Francisco’s Crane Cove Park project have not been spent for any other purposes and are available to the Port of San Francisco as required by the Grant Agreement between the Port and SFPA dated January 26, 2023. The Grant Agreement requires that “SFPA will provide to the Department (the Port) and the Department is required to upload a PDF copy of SFPA’s annual audited financial report and IRS Form 990 annual tax return into the City’s financial system…” The Grant Agreement further provides that “The annual audited financial report filings must include detailed information about the SFPA’s total sources and uses of funds and also the sources and uses of funds dedicated to support the Department…” and Additionally, SFPA will post audited financial report and IRS Form 990 and all related tax return schedules on its website annually within 60 days of the completion date of each.”
“None of the staff or leadership of the Parks Alliance are here,” Walton said, “and the information I requested has not been submitted.
He said that the damage to community groups from the alliance failure “cannot be underestimated” and “seeing the Parks Alliance absence, I will be asking the committee to direct the clerk to issues subpoenas” to Ogilvy and Becher, as well as the group’s treasurer, Rich Hutchison.
The supes have the authority to issue subpoenas, which are legal mandates to appear and provide documents, but it’s rarely used. The last time I remember seeing a subpoena issued was when former Sup. Aaron Peskin demanded that the engineer on the tilting Millennium Tower appear.
In this case, the committee unanimously voted to issue the subpoenas, and Fielder, the chair, will schedule the next hearing on the issue.
All of the committee members had scathing comments about the Parks Alliance. “People’s hard-earned funds and jobs and livelihoods are now lost,” Fielder said.
More than a dozen speakers lined up to describe how they had been stiffed by the Parks Alliance on money that they had raised for local neighborhood improvements. As the fiscal sponsor for dozens of projects, the alliance was supposed to take the money that communities raised and hold it in trust, then issue checks to project contractors (who were often local artists, landscapers, and contractors).
Since the alliance was a nonprofit, donations that community groups raised were tax deductible. This sort of arrangement is common with larger nonprofits who, for a fee (in this case, ten percent of the money) handle accounting and tax issues, allowing tiny community groups to avoid having to deal with the complexity of creating an IRS tax-exempt entity.
But according to reports, the alliance took that trust money and spent it on overhead, staff salaries, and operating expenses. Becher, as director, made about $200,000 a year in income and benefits, according to public tax filings. The organization’s total annual income was around $9 million; the top seven employees collected more than $1 million of that, the filings show.
Now, Walton said, it’s not even clear where all the money went, how much is left, and whether community groups will be able to pay their bills.
Tom Radulovich, director of the nonprofit Livable City and a volunteer with the Friends of Oak Woodlands, said that the situation with the Parks Alliance was infuriating. “We are reeling, scandal after scandal,” he said, calling on the city to “make whole” the community groups whose money was diverted.
Oddly, Bob Fielder, the director of the Stern Grove Festival, spent his public comment time defending Rec-Park Director Phil Ginsburg. “I don’t see how Phil would have had access to Parks Alliance records,” he said. “There’s no way he could have known anything.”
Ginsburg has worked very closely with the Parks Alliance for years. But none of the supes so far have suggested that he was directly involved in the scandal.
Walton said that when the hearing is rescheduled, all of that will come to light. “We will also hear from Rec-Park and the Port,” he said.
