There may be nefarious or even criminal reasons why the Sunset Cinema outdoor movies in the park are not happening this summer, as the SF Parks Alliance that runs those movie nights is now facing a criminal probe over millions of disappearing dollars.

At the beginning of May, we learned that SF’s popular movies in the park program Sundown Cinema would be canceled for 2025, as the SF Parks Alliance nonprofit that runs the program was having some mysterious but definitely problematic financial issues. The SF Parks Alliance (which is not the same as the SF Rec and Parks Department) is a private nonprofit that does its own fundraising and holds funds like a bank for various smaller park-and neighborhood related groups, so those groups do not have to incorporate as nonprofits themselves.

Those financial issues got less mysterious, and more problematic, when the Chronicle dropped a 5pm Friday news bomb this past weekend that the Parks Alliance had spent nearly $4 million of others groups’ money on its own operating expenses. Parks Alliance board chair Louise Mozingo told the Chronicle said that the organization’s financial problems were “what a friend of mine would call a dumpster fire,” apparently not wanting to call it a dumpster fire herself.  

But we may definitely be getting into dumpster fire territory, as today’s Chronicle reports that DA Brooke Jenkins’s office has opened a criminal investigation into the Parks Alliance. That investigation is reportedly being run by the office’s special prosecutions unit, which probes public corruption and white-collar crime.  

On top of that, City Attorney David Chiu’s office confirmed that they too are investigating the SF Parks Alliance. That investigation would be unlikely to yield criminal charges, but Chiu’s office could sue the organization, or have them barred from getting any further city contracts.

“The recent reports of financial mismanagement at the Parks Alliance are extremely troubling,” City Attorney spokesperson Jen Kwart said in a statement to the Chronicle. “We are looking into the matter to ensure public resources are used appropriately.”

For his part, new SF Parks Alliance CEO Robert Ogilvie told the Chronicle, “This is the first I’m hearing about it right now,” when asked about the reported criminal investigation. Ogilvie replaced former CEO Drew Becher, who quietly resigned in February, before reports started surfacing that the alliance’s smaller partners were seeing it taking months or longer to get reimbursed for expenses as little as $100.

But the Chronicle did obtain an email from Ogilvie, sent this past Monday, where Ogilvie apologized to members for the “lack of communication, transparency and accountability that has come from the organization in the past,”

Last week, Supervisor Shamann Walton called for hearings into the Parks Alliance’s troubled financial situation. Then earlier today, Supervisor Jackie Fielder called for an audit by the SF Budget & Legislative Analyst to “examine any and all financial and in-kind relationships with SF Parks Alliance, including but not limited to the special restricted funds for the General Manager and the Recreation and Park Commission.”

If it needs to be pointed out, Jackie Fielder and DA Brooke Jenkins are just about the furthest opposites possible on the SF political spectrum. And even on their polar-opposite political ends, both are now targeting the SF Parks Alliance.

The alliance seems eager to see former CEO Drew Becher set up as the fall guy here. But now multiple investigations are underway, and new revelations could change that narrative fast.

Related: Supervisor Calls For Hearings Into Whatever’s Going On at Beleaguered SF Parks Alliance [SFist]

Image: SF Parks Alliance