The SF Public Space Collective came together amidst the fallout of the San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), to build an organizational model grounded in community public space stewardship, transparency, accountability and collaboration.
When SFPA announced their dissolution on June 3rd, 2025, a parks advocacy organization with over 50 years of history in San Francisco was gone and with it, the operating funds for over 70 community groups that had been fiscally sponsored by SFPA. This abrupt collapse disappeared millions of dollars for public space projects and community parks groups across the City, and disrupted public space stewardship San Francisco. Over the coming months, in an unprecedented effort, the community parks groups came together with funders and city government to address the crisis and to ameliorate the harm. By September, over $2 million dollars had been raised to return to community groups.
In the meantime, leaders from these same groups began to come together to envision what a new organizational structure that truly met the needs of community based public space stewardship could look like. While funds were raised to return to former fiscal sponsees, groups still scrambled to establish a new fiscal sponsor. Existing institutions across the City heeded the call, like Greening Projects, Livable City and Independent Arts and Media, but many smaller organizations did not qualify for fiscal sponsorship on their own.
Fifteen small organizations banded together to form the San Francisco Public Space Collective, fiscally sponsored by Contina Impact. While we are working together to meet our immediate needs, we are also engaging in a long-range strategic planning process to determine the organizational structure that will sustain us and our vision for a biodiverse, connected city into the future.
We are indebted to Contina Impact and Third Plateau for their fundraising and operational support.
The Steering Committee
Ildiko Polony
Ildiko grew up in apartment buildings in Oakland and did not have much access to nature as a child. Until discovering California native plants and habitat restoration, she focused her life on climate change activism and the pursuit of modern dance. 10 years ago, while a student at UC Berkeley, she planted a vegetable garden for the first time, and was overcome with how much life existed in her tiny San Francisco backyard. She asked herself what would happen if we tried to help this nature and how do you do it? This resulted in the epiphany that in order to foster local wildlife you must plant the plants that the wildlife evolved with, in other words, the plants native to your area. She became enamored with the flora of California.
With this new found passion, she redirected her studies and received a Bachelor’s of Science in Conservation and Resources Studies from UC Berkeley. Since then, she has worked at Larner Seeds as a seed amplifier, collector, and gardener, at Mission Blue Nursery as a Nursery Manager, at Literacy for Environmental Justice as a Nursery Manager, and now at Sutro Stewards as the Executive Director.
She is passionate about bringing the healing joy and satisfaction of participating in nature through habitat restoration to as many people as possible. Starting in our own backyards and moving outward to the greater community, she cherishes the opportunity to offer Mount Sutro as a place of engagement, healing, and community building through improving and maintaining access to the Mountain and working to enhance its biodiversity.
Marc A. Snyder
Marc Snyder, a resident of Noe Valley since 1977, helped found the 22nd Street Jungle Stairs Project in 2012. A graduate of Brown University and Stanford University School of Medicine, he trained in Family Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, and served as an emergency physician and Medical Director of the Emergency Department at St. Luke’s Hospital (now CPMC’s Mission Bernal Campus) for over 3 decades. Now retired from clinical practice, he still consults on the hospital’s Ethics Committee. His public service includes 16 years as a member and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pickle Family Circus. He also devoted several years to the Board of the Coalition to Underground Utilities.
Marc is an avid reader of contemporary fiction and plays drums with a jazz quintet.
He and Mari, his wife of 43 years, are thrilled to have 2 wonderful grandchildren in Marin.
Matthew Blain
Matthew is Chair of SF Urban Riders, the local trail advocacy group. He’s lived in the Bay Area for over two decades, and grew up riding bikes in Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley. Matthew has been interested in bicycle advocacy for many years and became part of the SF Urban Riders leadership team in 2015. Matthew has is on the board of several coalitions, including the SF Crosstown Trail Coalition and California Mountain Biking Coalition.
Paul Hagen
Paul Hagen is the Executive Director of Friends of Balboa Park. Paul’s career has largely focused on human-centered design and helping make organizations run better for the people they serve. He has skipped back and forth between corporate and nonprofit/public service work – from the Peace Corps and Teach for America to Accenture, Forrester Research, West Monroe Partners & Alida. Today, he runs his own consulting practice, focusing on strategy, emerging technology, innovation and customer/user experience. He has a strong interest in applying design thinking to innovate around large systemic issues like education, healthcare, transportation/mobility, energy/water efficiency, and smart/sustainable cities.
Rob Laub
Rob studied architecture and city planning at UC Berkeley and has volunteered with Friends of Oak Woodlands Golden Gate Park for over a decade, now serving as the group’s Project Manager. He is the Director of Operations and Marketing for a top‑producing real estate group and holds licenses in California and New York. His years in the Hudson Valley fostered an appreciation for both natural landscapes and art‑focused public spaces. This perspective continues to shape his commitment to San Francisco’s public realm.
Sophie Constantinou
Sophie Constantinou is a creative placemaking artist, documentary storyteller, and co-founder of Citizen Film, a nationally acclaimed nonprofit organization devoted to inspiring active engagement in civic life. In addition to sparking national reflection, Citizen Film collaborates with local communities to illuminate challenges and opportunities, disrupt conventional thinking and create new landscapes that improve sustainability and environmental health. Citizen Film has been working with the Western Addition community and SFRPD to build equity into the planning and redesign of the Buchanan Street Mall. The new community designed park is set to open in 2026 that includes a signature art walk of work collectively designed by and with the local community. Sophie also is the Public Works Street Park Steward of the Bernal Cut, a mile long corridor being transformed with dense native habitat, murals and interpretive signage. Sophie is the Vice-Chair of PROSAC (Park, Recreation and Open Space Advisory Committee) and President of the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society.
Stacy Owens
Stacy Owens has 25 years experience in political treasury and compliance, and non-profit bookkeeping and accounting. Stacy is a lifelong animal rights activist and advocate. Stacy has built S.E. Owens & Company to provide professional and personalized service to the clients and causes she cares about deeply.