Fault Lines - City’s preservation organization is crumbling apart beautifully

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City’s preservation organization is crumbling apart beautifully

POSTED June 30, 9:48 PM

San Francisco Beautiful is an organization that owes its start to a woman who saved the cable cars. So it’s no wonder that a lot of people are wondering how such a group could get so far off track.

But that’s where it seems to be right now, an agency with a muddled mission, a bickering board recently hit by a mass exodus and a new bent that seems to place spin above substance.

And spinning would be a good way to describe the nonprofit these days. In the last year, the organization has seen nine board members quit, three on the same day, apparently because of dissent about the agency’s direction and treatment of its staff. After San Francisco Beautiful’s highly respected executive director, Dee Dee Workman, announced that she was quitting after 11 years in April, the group’s program director found another job — which means the agency will be without two-thirds of its staff by mid-month.

People close to the organization say that the problems stem from certain board members focusing on issues that didn’t resonate with the public and a continuing insistence on raising more money, but without any firm plan in place on how to do it.

“There was a real lack of savvy among some board members about how to raise money without any downtown connections or a compelling cause,” one former volunteer said. “I don’t think there was a sophisticated message being presented — and talking about graffiti and litter and billboards isn’t going to reap gobs of corporate money.’’

But the departure of so many board members, including one major benefactor who suddenly resigned Monday, speaks volumes about the state of the nonprofit, which scored a sweeping political victory in 2002 when it sponsored Proposition G — the no new billboards measure — and got it passed with nearly 80 percent of the vote.

While that proved to be a highlight for San Francisco Beautiful, it also marked the ensuing years as something of a drifting period in which some of the organization’s members had difficulty focusing on anything but anti-blight issues, to the point that almost any form of outdoor advertising, be it digital billboards or bus stop ads, became almost a singular focus for some board members.

And that’s a far cry from the organization’s genesis, which in 1947 focused on saving two Powell Street cable car lines that then-Mayor Roger Lapham wanted to shut down in favor of new buses. That became a rallying cry for Friedel Klussmann, a prominent local socialite who used her money and public standing to head a campaign that saved the cable cars — and led to the creation of San Francisco Beautiful.

Somehow those iconic cars rising halfway to the stars seem a more worthy venture for a group that is supposed to identify and target issues that personify the beautification efforts on behalf of San Francisco. And certainly the community grants that it awards each year to groups and activists benefit The City in small but meaningful ways.

Yet the big picture emphasis seems to be lacking, which has led to contentious battles on ways in which the organization should grow. About two years ago, the board agreed with Workman’s assessment that the nonprofit should hire a full-time development director, only to see that decision overturned by its president, with a marketing/public relations person hired instead. And so, the plan to help raise more funds for the organization’s endowment turned out to be just another expense.

Architect Robin Chiang, who was one of the three board members who abruptly resigned on the same day, said when all the talk about the endowment turned to questions about possibly cutting staff, it became too much.

“I reminded the board that fundraising was their job, not the staff’s,’’ he said. “They began to refer to the staff in the third person, even when they were present at meetings. And I felt that it was unfair, because our staff has always been excellent.’’

Attorney and acting chair Robert Friese, who is the longest-serving board member and helped create the original endowment from Klussman’s estate, called the current state of the organization a “rebuilding phase.’’

“S.F. Beautiful tried to jump a little farther than it could afford to do financially,’’ he told me. “We’re a little disappointed we haven’t been able to do all that we want to do, but we need to put more pressure on board members to achieve our goals.’’

Workman called her time there “a dream job.’’

“I’ve had a chance to contribute a lot and I’ve loved my time here,’’ she said. “I just hope the organization will continue to go forward, not back.’’

The same philosophy applies to cable cars. You don’t want to be on one when it starts sliding in reverse.

San Francisco Beautiful began with the mission of saving two Powell Street cable car lines in 1947.
(Examiner file photo)