According to federal tax data, People of Parkside Sunset, the nonprofit for which District 4 supervisor hopeful Albert Chow serves as president, has not filed tax returns for years.
On both the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt organization search and ProPublica’s nonprofit explorer, the most recent return for People of Parkside Sunset is from 2019. The San Francisco OpenData website records the nonprofit receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in city funds during this time period.
Chow acknowledged that the nonprofit — which goes by the acronym POPS and is also known as the Taraval Parkside Merchants Association — has not always filed its federal returns.
“POPS did file previously, but also skipped a few years, too. That is my fault,” he texted Mission Local. “I plain forgot. It was brought to my attention, and I’m going to ask my accountant to get me those missing filings done.”
Chow is one of four so-called “finalists” in the public process to find the replacement for Supervisor Beya Alcaraz, who quickly resigned after replacing the recalled Joel Engardio.
Earlier this week, a fifth prospect, Wannong “Tiffany” Deng, exited the process after Mission Local revealed she missed voting in nine consecutive San Francisco elections and was until 2022 a registered Republican.
Chow claims his nonprofit filed its returns last year and in 2023, and “I think 2020.” But these returns do not show up on either the IRS’ own website or the ProPublica nonprofit explorer. On Friday, he could not send Mission Local the returns from those years, nor otherwise prove they were filed.
People of Parkside Sunset, which was founded more than 60 years ago as the Taraval Parkside Merchants Association, is a membership organization for both area businesses and residents. It sponsors street fairs, merchant mixers and festivals. In October, it put on outdoor family movies at McCoppin Square Park every weekend.
The city’s OpenData site reveals that at least $440,000 in city funds were paid to the nonprofit between 2018 and 2022.
Retired accountant Jerry Dratler, the former chief accounting officer of Williams Sonoma, said the dearth of tax returns “is important to anyone who gives them money.”
While the nonprofit did not owe money, Dratler described its failure to file returns as “a compliance failure and a public disclosure failure.”
Chow is a licensed contractor and the owner of Great Wall Hardware, which burned in August 2024 and remains shuttered. He was an outspoken proponent of the recall of Supervisor Joel Engardio, and has expressed interest in running for District 4 supervisor in June 2026, but has not yet declared.
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office interviewed him before Alcaraz was appointed and, with her political demise, he is in the running once more.
“We don’t have representation in the Sunset,” Chow told Mission Local earlier this month. “We’ve lost a lot of time already. … If you [the mayor] are gonna appoint, I might as well get in there and start doing the work right now.”
Lurie’s office declined to comment on the matter. The mayor is expected to name the next supervisor shortly.
Thank you for your diligent reporting on this train wreck.
These revelations are absolutely disqualifying. Additionally, this nonprofit isn’t even registered with the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts. And the fact that the City has given that much money to this organization nevertheless is even sufficient grounds for an investigation against the City by the California AG.
they may have a fiscal sponsor with whom they partner and whose tax id they use for donations, but failing to file non-profit paperwork while taking in hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations is immediately disqualifying.
What the …
THIS is the caliber of people being appointed and “short listed”? For a responsible fiscal role in the management of the county? People who just don’t think the rules apply to them. Gadzooks.
“People who just don’t think the rules apply to them.”
But it crosses over to Lurie’s admin as well, the “rules” of vetting candidates to political appointments with such power clearly aren’t being followed. Chow’s stewardship of the NP is public knowledge, it’s not like nobody could have known to look at his actual records. Lurie’s chief Han Zou says an outside agency is doing the vetting, but so far I haven’t seen anyone name that agency. I call BS. Agencies don’t leave multiple glaring holes in a row, one after another, even after the previous ones are publicly exposed. It would kill them.
Alcaraz resigned and the first thing Lurie and his team did wasn’t to IMMEDIATELY check the tax records of his other options?? If he’s fumbling this pick so badly, just imagine what we don’t yet know about the rest of his work.
At this point I think we can say Lurie is just a clueless noob whose skills are nowhere near what the job requires. How many months did they have to prepare for this? It’s not like the recall was some sort of sneak attack.
Is it really too much to expect basic honesty from politicians? Do our politicians always have to be grifters?
He’s not a politician really. Or did you mean Lurie?
Did he also forget to file CA’s RRF form? “Failure to file California’s Form RRF-1 can lead to an organization being listed as delinquent with the Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts, and if not corrected, its status can change to suspended or revoked. This can result in the loss of tax-exempt status, penalties such as an $800 minimum tax plus interest, and fines.”
As someone who is highly critical/skeptical of the nonprofit-industrial complex, their use of our taxpayer funds, lack of accountability and metrics, I consider this a big red flag.
Many of the local nonprofits have operated as a system akin to organized crime. SF voters are no longer as tolerant to the sob stories and emotion narratives as we used to be.
Well what would these returns actually show were they filed? That’s the 64k question that underlines the fail/mistake of not filing them.
If there’s nothing out of the ordinary there and he actually just… forgot… which is not a defensible political position I cede, it only shows he was asleep at the wheel and paying attention to other things – like his store being burned down and then rebuilt, for example. But unless there’s capital-F fraud in the financials, it’s still just an embarrassing and disqualifying oversight. Penalties will be paid, at worst.
I tried looking up the money granted to POPS on the SF data portal and wasn’t able to find anything. Where should we look to find the $440,000 mentioned in the article?
Chow can’t be bothered to follow the law.
Next.
Neither did Lurie’s first pick. The one he ‘vetted’ remember?
The shtshow continues.
No doubt if you toss your hat in the ring, you should know to be above board on things like this. Very disappointing.
Absolutely the 100% point. Chow didn’t take care of this but thought he could run a district at thousand-fold complexity? It’s important that the independent media got around to investigating these details but that begs the question, just how are these folks getting so close to political appointments without the VETTING taking place to find this out way, way ahead of time?
He filed in 2020 for 2019 when COVID hit.
How much did he received after that until now. The quite of $440,000 is from 2018 to 2022?
Give it to one of the Mar twins,
They represented the district for 11 years in a row til London pulled her Redistricting strings and got a white guy elected.
Now, Mayor Lurie is finding out how crooked some of the Avenue Asian politicos can be going back to the guy doing time with Nuru and the past head of the SF School Board who was agreeing to arrange hits.
The Mars are knowns and w/out scandal.
go Niners !!
h.
Not true. Different districts for these wishy washy, fence sitting liberals!
Much like the Mission the West Side appear to be a corrupt….district, enclave, suburb…non diverse “locale”. Perfect for San Francisco where we pat ourselves on the back.
“Much like the Mission the West Side appear to be a corrupt….district, enclave, suburb”
Nonsense talk. Find one crime Gordon Mar committed.
Ed Jew was a sheister, but so was London Breed and Ed Lee.
I clicked on the Propublica site and the group came up as tax exempt since 2014? Am I not understanding something.
MK —
You still have to file taxes. These, in part, explain what you’re doing with your money.
See here:
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organization-annual-filing-requirements-overview
Best,
JE
I don’t think that the Brown machine mayors would ever reject a prospective appointee who comes to the table pre-nonprofit corrupted.
You’re right, but many of the local progressives are also guilty. I think we need to acknowledge as a city that many nonprofits are able to get away with quite a lot by playing on the emotions of voters. The system is ripe for graft and corruption.
‘non-profit’ and ‘progressive’ are not interchangeable terms.
Thanks for reporting
Politicians are self serving.
Don’t really see any good candidates .
Supervisors and bureacracy here need fixing .
Way too many city employees and salaries are very high in comparision to other cities.
SF is a welfare city that needs to address the handouts and grift .
1/3 of population on medicaid ? Why?
Some are legit but bet most are gaming the system.
Get a job . Move were there are plenty of jobs .
Stop the handouts for every interest that comes along and shows a slick power point .
Chow is qualified, uniquely qualified.
for corruption
“Chow is qualified”
Yes, Chow is qualified to be locked up.
It’s actually not a crime. It’s an oversight and it looks bad. If he had filed fraudulent returns that would be a crime.
Surely someone as “serious” as yourself understands the difference.