san francisco parks alliance corruption

Get the latest posts delivered right to your inbox. Abrupt closure of S.F. At a hearing last year, Lisa Bransten, director of partnerships for the parks department, said Parks Alliance backing certainly played a part in boosting job satisfaction to 86% among the staff. These funds were largely spent on staff appreciation and events that benefited City employees.. Federal investigators say the alliance maintained a $1 million off-the-books fund that then Public Works director Mohammed Nuru frequently tapped to pay for employee parties, events and swag. The City controls the contracts and we follow the terms of the contracts, so there is a lot of information that came out that is really a City issue. and Park, the expenses and transactions with those subaccounts dating back five fiscal years and identifying the funding sources for the subaccounts. Nuru and others would direct staff to pay for goods and services for staff appreciation, volunteer programs, merchandise, community support and events from specific vendors, "circumventing city purchasing controls," the report found. "Like everyone, we were outraged to learn of the public corruption in our local government, Becher said, in a statement. For a Richmond neighborhood playground, for instance, the $3 million budget was completely opaque, said Fred Brousseau, from the Budget and Legislative Analyst's office. Efforts to keep the wheel up received yet another setback during Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting, when both supervisors Aaron Peskin and Connie Chan called on the city controller and Budget Analyst's Office to conduct an investigation into the San Francisco Parks Alliance's contract with the city's Recreation and Parks Department, which allows profits generated by vendors like SkyStar to be directed to the San Francisco Parks Alliance. Parks Alliance spokesperson Juliana Bunim said in a statement Thursday that the group appreciates "all ongoing efforts to strengthen transparency and collaboration between nonprofit. The organization said Friday that its books are totally open and available, and it would gladly provide park department records, which the city hasnt requested previously. SF Supervisors Issue Subpoena Into Records Between Parks - KQED The idea is to avoid arrangements like the one Nuru and other Public Works employees had with the nonprofit San Francisco Parks Alliance and Recology, the trash-hauling giant that holds a monopoly on garbage collection in San Francisco. The Alliance has not been accused of wrongdoing in the city corruption scandal and did not get paid for its account management. DPH was tasked with signing off on the health and safety of the facility, as its permits moved through the city. A memorandum of understanding between the city and the Parks Alliance lays down some requirements for how they operate, and was retooled to strengthen some reporting requirements in 2020 in the wake of the citywide corruption scandal, but the Budget and Legislative Analyst still recommended it be strengthened. We did not dive deeper with Rec. But recent revelations have demonstrated that the opaque nature of several organizations, including the SF Parks Alliance, has aided and abetted corruption within San Francisco government.". We have nothing to hide.. The 33-page report follows sprawling investigations into corruption across the city. She is already co-sponsoring a measure that would prohibit city officials and employees from soliciting payments from people who could benefit from business. City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Wednesday announced. That corrupt slush fund really just a minor piece of the wider public corruption scandal put a dark cloud over the Golden Gate Park's SkyStar Ferris wheel, because the Parks Alliance gets. During the Thursday hearing, Farrell from the Parks Alliance said they have already apologized for that spat. but even at the lower levels it can lead to more of a culture of corruption where contractors have cozy . A city controller report last year called out the connection between the Parks Alliance and the park department after discovering Nurus $1 million slush fund. The park departments memo said, For the most part we welcome the recommendations in the report and many of them are generally in place through the (memorandum of understanding) or existing policy.. Do you know when can we expect that information?. non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and This raised a lot of questions, said City Supervisor Connie Chan, who has been a vocal critic of the Parks Alliances role in city politics. SF corruption probe: PG&E, major construction firms, nonprofits hit Get all the latest & greatest posts delivered straight to your inbox, Audit Finds $3.5 Million In Anonymous Donations to SF Parks Alliance, Calls Out 'Potential Conflicts of Interest', Ferris wheel was extended another four years, Parks Alliance Pushes Back On Accusations, Tells Supervisor Chan to Kiss Richmond Playground Goodbye [SFist], Big-Money SF Tech Groups Hoping To Steer Friendlier Policy Toward Big Money and Tech, Board of Appeals Weighs In on Saga of Vacant, Apparently Unclaimed Mission District Lot, Tells Supes to Act, SF Supes Overturn Their Own Ban On Doing Business With States With Discriminatory Laws. "Instead of going directly to our city's general fund, the revenue generated from SkyStar is going to a non-profit that is still under FBI and public corruption investigations," said Chan, whose supervisorial district includes Golden Gate Park. Since then, the organization has eliminated anonymous donations above $100, listed all donors on its public website and upgraded its customer management tools to collect and track all disclosure information, Bunim said. Even so, Supervisor Aaron Peskin has joined Chan in questioning the ethical implications of shifting money from a scholarship fund to a separate pot controlled by parks officials. About Us - San Francisco Parks Alliance That is correct, Sobrepena said. It often pays to have friends in high places. Audit Finds $3.5 Million In Anonymous Donations to SF Parks Alliance While it's gotten a lot of love for its glowing lights at night, the contract to build it wasn't issued competitively, Brousseau said. The Historic Preservation Commission is expected to vote on whether to extend the contract through 2025 at its next meeting on March 3. We are putting a stop to it, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, in a statement. "When it comes to equity in our public parks, San Francisco doesn't even rank top ten. Following the release of the report, Mayor London Breed announced an executive order to address the recommendations in the report. That general fund had paid more than $5,000 in costs associated with the parks department staff retreat held in 2018 at Cavallo Point, The Lodge at the Golden Gate. Nuru would solicit those funds from contractors whose city contracts Nuru oversaw. Im relieved to know Supervisor Chan and others are requiring transparency from our City agencies, especially SF Rec and Park. Now after nearly a year, the wheel is scheduled to be removed at the end of March, but a proposal seeking to extend the wheel's stay for four more years in order to help SkyStar "offset financial hardship" has yet to be decided by the city's Historic Preservation Commission. SF Audit Critical of Non-Profit in Public Corruption Scandal Another issue was anonymous donations, with up to $3 million from unnamed sources going to the Parks Alliance during the same time period the organization gave $1.9 million to the park department. All told, the report found that 33 out of 56 San Francisco city departments benefit from these kinds of nonprofit organizations, which between them have 588 accounts spent on city activities. While City Administrator Naomi Kelly has not yet been named in any of the subpoenas, her husband, SF Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly, has, per the Chronicle. SF supervisor subpoenas parks nonprofit in wake of report that calls It's unclear what, if any, cooperation has been ongoing between Naomi Kelly and the feds but the Chronicle reveals that it was Kelly herself who called and alerted the FBI when Nuru contacted her in January to tip her off about the federal probe. Supervisor Matt Haney also plans to introduce legislation next week that will go further than the mayor's order, explicitly banning department heads from asking any person or party doing business with their department for donations, among other changes. Financial transaction records between the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and the non-profit San Francisco Parks Alliance are now the focus of a subpoena, after a unanimous vote by the Government Audit and Oversight Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Connie Chan is not done snooping into the finances of the San Francisco Parks Alliance, with an audit she ordered finding millions in anonymous donations, but no smoking gun. Thank you to Mr. Pendergast for this article. and Park Department and Parks Alliance, it seems to me that General Manager, Phil Ginsburg, had decided to double down.. Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). After Nuru Scandal, SF Anti-Corruption Proposal Seeks to Prevent Bribes As a result, they were not subject to the same review and control that would otherwise exist to comply with the Citys accounting and procurement policies and procedures, Sobrepena said. The Controller's Office found at least one of these organizations, the San Francisco Parks Alliance, took roughly $1 million in donations from a number of city contractors which were under investigation by the City Attorney's Office for funneling money to the Public Works department for lavish parties, at the behest of former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, who was arrested by the FBI in January on corruption charges. Although the wheel was eventually able to open in the fall at limited capacity, a surge in cases halted operations after just five weeks. I just want you to know that I have asked for that information directly to the Rec. But the memo said the regulations on selecting contractors may not be fully in the best interests of the City, since many people who work on projects donate their services. Nuru was arrested by the FBI in January and accused of attempting to bribe an airport official. However, all of this occurred outside of the Citys established financial and procurement systems. Your email address will not be published. Chan then called on the Committee to issue a subpoena to the SF Parks Alliance for more information, including the number of subaccounts they have with Rec. and Park Department.. "What we found is that the [memorandum of understanding] had a high-level preliminary budget but no detail as to what the costs were going to be for the design contractor, for example, that was being paid for by the Parks Alliance," he told the supervisors at Thursday's hearing. The Historic Preservation Commission is expected to vote on whether to extend the contract through 2025 at its next meeting on March 3. Drew Becher, CEO of the San Francisco Parks Alliance, expressed shock at the city's findings. The documents show that in 2019, more than $64,000 that had been raised by the Crab Fest fund was transferred into a general fund. Alliance records also reflect more than $5,000 from the general fund paid for another park staff gathering in 2019, at a hotel in Seattle. The audit has confirmed a very problematic relationship between the San Francisco Parks Alliance and city departments, said city Supervisor Connie Chan about the findings of the review, particularly with the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.. Here are five key structures that need to bounce back to help the city recover. Of the $720,000 that (SF) Parks Alliance paid to vendors, more than half went to just five vendors. So, knowing that it actually does have a close relationship with the Rec. They report on how this privatization is taking place and the threat this is to public access and the need to stop the transfer of the park into a commercial profit center for developers with non-union workers and a lack of health and safety protection. Parks Alliance threatens to pull funding for Richmond District playground, S.F.s deal for the Golden Gate Park Ferris wheel may be investigated amid neighborhood fight, Downtown S.F. City department heads will now be required to reveal when they solicit donations to nonprofits like the "friends of" organizations and for city departments to formalize their relationships with these nonprofits, which would legally require those groups to boast greater transparency. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Wednesday announced that his office issued eight new subpoenas as part of the corruption investigation in the wake of the criminal charges filed .

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