Audit Endangers Chinatown Night Market
March 23, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO — Organizers behind the seven-year-old Chinatown Night Market are disagreeing with city audit recommendations to reimburse a portion of a $75,000 grant to the mayor’s office. The audit also recommends that the city “consider” stopping further public funding of the market.
The Chinese Neighborhood Association objected to the two recommendations and has reimbursed $9,514 “in protest” to the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development to comply with audit recommendations issued by the San Francisco Controller’s office. Co-chair Pius Lee said the group is “reserving our rights to seek legal action.”
The controller also recommended not issuing the remaining $11,486 of the grant after a March 5 audit report that said that the mayor’s office “overpaid [CNA] for Night Market expenses” and that organizers “did not meet grant terms.”
“It is unfortunate that this civic and economically beneficial event has been derailed for purely political reasons,” said Lee. “Political in-fighting that has led to this audit and previous investigation has substantially harmed the CNA’s attempt to have the project become self-supporting.”
Lee and his colleagues will rely on private funding instead of public funding. The audit, he said, will not affect plans for a 2007 night market.
Aaron Peskin, the supervisor who called for the audit, expects the night market to be self-sustaining. The market has received $823,825 for 134 evenings of night markets since 1999.
A 2006 financial statement provided by CNA claimed it broke even with Lee also donating office space, telephones, storage space and other resources. The group raised $70,000 in donations and night market space-rentals in 2005 and 2006 to cover CNA operations. Another $64,000 came from grants, including from the city.
The evening event has been annually held on fall weekends by providing retail space and live entertainment like lion dances and Chinese opera, and demonstrations like feng shui and Chinese painting on Portsmouth Square. The concept is based on night markets in Asia and was organized to increase patronage in Chinatown.
The CNA reimbursement covered what the controller considered a grant overpayment. Lee contends that CNA and the mayor’s office agreed to a reduced the night markets from 32 to 23 evenings for the 2005-06 night markets prior to accepting the grant. Lee said that the reduction was because CNA delayed opening the 2005 Chinatown Night Market and lack of funding.
“This change was acknowledged in correspondence between MOEWD and CNA provided to [the Controller’s Office] prior to the disbursement of funds in June 2006,” wrote Rich Hillis of MOEWD.
The mayoral-funded CNA was formed to draw customers to Chinatown in the wake of the 1991 demolition of the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway, a major transportation artery to the neighborhood.
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