Two years ago, Geri Diaz had a budding interest in native plants and a desire to find a job that would use her environmental studies degree. A web search brought up an internship with Sutro Stewards.
Diaz applied and was accepted, and spent a year learning plant care and other aspects of running a native plant nursery. She gained leadership skills and soon was helping run the volunteer program.
This became Diaz’s full-time job with Sutro Stewards a year ago. “I wouldn’t be able to break into the environmental field without the internship,” said Diaz. “Sutro Stewards gave me tons of hands-on experience.”
Diaz, a 27-year-old UC Santa Cruz graduate, was among the first group of interns hired by Sutro Stewards in 2021. But San Francisco’s most recent City Hall corruption scandal could put the dreams of the next Geri Diaz on hold.
The former director of the city’s Community Challenge grant program, Lanita Henriquez, faces 30 felony charges of taking bribes to steer grants and contracts to organizations operated by a former city employee and erstwhile boyfriend, Dwayne Jones, who has also been charged. (Henriquez pleaded not guilty, and Jones did not enter a plea.)
Amid the charges, cronyism, and cynicism, it’s easy to lose sight of the real-world consequences of bureaucratic corruption. Approved by voters in 1990, the program provides funding to community groups, businesses, schools, and nonprofits like Sutro Stewards to make physical improvements to their neighborhoods.
The fact that the grant awarded this year is under investigation is gumming up planning for the next fiscal year.
Sutro Stewards executive director Ildiko Polony
The program was put on pause. Last week, the city controller issued a scathing report on the program’s 2023 grant cycle, which totaled $2.5 million. A related program under Henriquez’s purview, which doled out $450,000 for water-related projects, was also suspended. Henriquez fudged the process and didn’t keep proper documentation to show how proposals were evaluated, according to the controller, who recommended restarting the grant cycle from scratch.
With a new director, re-evaluations are underway, said Angela Yip, senior communications and legislative analyst for the Office of the City Administrator, which runs the Community Challenge Grants. Organizations could begin hearing about the status of their applications by mid-November, she added.
That means at least a two-month delay for Sutro Stewards. The nonprofit, which works on habitat restoration in the public green space behind UCSF’s Parnassus medical center, had just brought on three interns with its $92,500 grant when the city administrator requested in September that they suspend work, said director Ildiko Polony: “The fact that the grant awarded this year is under investigation is gumming up planning for the next fiscal year.”
[Update, 11/20/23: Sutro Stewards learned on Nov. 10 that their grant was not only reinstated, but it was increased by $6,000.]
More red tape, less field time
The Frisc reached out to several of the 24 recipients of recent grants. One hoped the delay wouldn’t cause much distraction. “We are very confident in the merits of our application and hope and trust we will get back on track shortly,” said Julie Christensen, executive director of the Dogpatch and NW Potrero Hill Green Benefit District, which received a 2023 grant to add green space along 20th Street.
A board member of another grantee, Alemany Farm, told The Frisc they would dip into reserves to continue with their planned apprenticeship program.
But for Sutro Stewards, with an annual budget of $567,000, the do-over adds headaches and red tape, which a tiny organization that leans on volunteers can ill afford.
Polony began work a year ago on the proposal for this year’s Community Challenge grant. She says it took nearly two months to complete, requiring coordination with UCSF and SF’s Recreation and Park Department. She also must juggle other sources of funding, including another infusion from philanthropist Craig Newmark, all while sending regular reports to funders to show their money is being put to good use.
Any additional requirements for a grant “means less time in the field,” said Polony.
Alec Hawley, a landscape architect who has worked on many projects funded by Community Challenge grants, sympathizes about the workload. He said the CCG program is already larded up with requirements: “The current structure is overkill, making a huge hurdle” for small groups like Sutro Stewards.
In the interim, Polony said the organization would use reserves to pay staff. But if the CCG money doesn’t come through, they’ll be back to relying on volunteers.
This year’s $92,500 grant is to help pay to clear an area of nonnative plants and create a healing garden with thousands of native plants, where people with mental health issues can learn landscaping skills.
The work is supposed to include monthly weeding sessions, but with the grant in limbo there might only be resources for quarterly meetups — not enough to keep invasive plants out, said Polony.
The tangible results of the grant program were on display on a recent brisk morning. At the native plant nursery, Diaz was directing volunteers to prepare 800 plants for transplantation, clean seeds, and place them into envelopes to store for later sowing.
At a table near the nursery entrance, two of the volunteers under Diaz’s direction were removing husks and other debris from blue wild rye and purple needlegrass seeds and packing them up.
Edith Bourbin and Janis Gomes, both retired, have been volunteering for years and remember the days before interns. They love the difference. “It’s great that there are young people who are interested in ecology,” said Bourbin.
The intern program isn’t just about job training, or building bridges between neighborhoods and age groups, says Polony, it’s also restoring biodiversity, which helps combat the climate crisis. “We bring young people out to help them get skills, they help us restore areas, and the results of that work helps everyone.”