It’s beginning to look a lot like Nuru with a pattern uncovered during mayoral candidate Mark Farrell’s time on the Board of Supervisors, as a report details how he got $1.2 million in donations directed to a nonprofit where his wife serves on the board.

There’s an interesting contrast in some local media coverage of mayoral candidate Mark Farrell over the last two days. The SF Standard ran a Thursday piece on Farrell’s proposal to put the SF Public Utilities Commission in charge of the city’s arrangements with Recology, partially in light of disgraced former DPW head Mohammed Nuru soliciting “behested payments” for his favorite nonprofits in exchange for the rate hikes Recology was seeking.

Yet today in the Chronicle, there’s an exhaustive analysis of the $1.2 million Farrell raised in behested payments during his tenure on the SF Board of Supervisors, much of it from private companies and entities who had business deals proposed before the city. The Chronicle notes these companies included “tech goliaths, a fitness club and Recology.”

These so-called behested payments are donations elected officials request that private companies make to a nonprofit or cause of their liking. They are technically legal (to a degree), but to a normal person, this sure smells like a quid pro quo or a backroom deal, particularly if the donor has some business before City Hall.

“As a supervisor representing the Marina, Pacific Heights and nearby neighborhoods between 2011 and 2018, Farrell directed more than $1.2 million to the Parks Alliance, which advocates for San Francisco open space and parks, by asking corporations and individuals to donate to the nonprofit more than 125 times,” the Chronicle reports. “By comparison, the colleague who requested the second most private donations during this period raised just over $23,000.”

Not all of these donors had business before the city, and there is no evidence that Farrell got bribes, tractors, and fancy liquor from the donors like Nuru did. But the Chronicle does note that Farrell’s wife has been involved with the SF Parks Alliance since 2016, and has served on its board of directors since 2017.

Farrell insisted to the Chronicle there is no wrongdoing here. “I have always followed the law. Period. I always voted my conscience 100% of the time in City Hall,” Farrell told the paper. “My policy and track record on issues are very clear and very consistent … and the thought of who donated at my request to a nonprofit never entered my mind."

Though we should note that Farrell was levied with a $25,000 fine in 2016 for illegally coordinating with an outside political action committee, and there have been some fairly dubious ethical allegations dogging his campaign.  

These contributions to the SF Parks Alliance were mostly for innocuous things like improving parks and playgrounds and such. But Farrell’s mayoral opponents are jumping on this as backroom dealing.

“You could be giving the money to Mother Teresa,” Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the Chronicle. “It is not a charitable donation if there is no charitable intent. It doesn't matter how laudable the cause or recipient is.”

The Chronicle details other behested payments Farrell solicited that were not for the SF Parks Alliance, but could still be seen as potentially quid pro quo payments. Between 2013 and 2018, Farrell got Google to donate $640,000 for free WiFi in SF parks and other various causes, while there were a couple of tech tax measures before the Board of Supervisors. Farrell voted against all of those tax measures.

But most of the article focuses on $17,500 in SF Parks Alliance contributions that Farrell solicited from developers TMG Partners and Prado Group in 2015, funds used for the noble goal of opening SF public school playgrounds on weekends. But Prado Group had a proposed 3333 California project development for which Farrell personally proposed a tax carve-out immediately after their donation, and TMG Partners had a proposed residential complex they were trying to build at 3700 California Street, which Farrell promoted and voted in favor of.

Though in a truly San Francisco twist to this story, the Chronicle notes that of those two proposed developments, “Neither is built yet.” Prado did get approval for the 3333 California project, but it was stalled by a lawsuit, and Prado is in the process of submitting revised plans. At 3700 California Street, TMG Partners actually sold the property, ironically to Prado Group, who are submitting new plans for that site too.  

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