Restore Sharp Park!

You can help restore Sharp Park by taking four actions today:

1. Contact Congresswoman Jackie Speier and tell her Sharp Park isn’t too big to fail: no federal bailout for an endangered species-killing golf course! If federal dollars will be part of the solution at Sharp Park, we deserve an asset in return, and the best asset would be a new National Park at Sharp Park! Call the Congresswoman at (202) 225-3531.
2. Send an e-mail to the Board of Supervisors & the Mayor and let them know you want San Francisco to partner with the National Park Service to build a better public park at Sharp Park that everyone can enjoy!
3. Volunteer with the Wild Equity Institute! Help us spread the word by talking to your neighbors about the benefits of a new National Park at Sharp Park, passing out our Sharp Park Restoration Flyer and our Save Sharp Park Beach Flyer, and attending public hearings. Sign-up by calling 415-349-5787 or sending a message to info@wildequity.org.
4. Donate to the Wild Equity Institute. Don’t have time to volunteer? Become a member of the Wild Equity Institute for as little as $10, or better yet, become a monthly donor and provide sustained support for our work!

Read on:

In November 2009 San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department released its long-delayed report on alternative visions for a future Sharp Park. But rather than use the best scientific evidence to create a new vision for Sharp Park, the Recreation and Parks Department’s General Manager Phil Ginsburg recommended armoring the sea wall and selecting an all-golf alternative at Sharp Park, which will cause the beach to erode away and relegate the endangered species to the portions of Sharp Park we know will be impacted by climate change and sea levels rise.

If this alternative is selected by San Francisco, the endangered species on the property will be lost forever, as will the opportunity to build a better public park with recreational amenities everyone can enjoy. You can hear Restore Sharp Park supporters debate the report on KQED’s Forum.

The report contains many surreal statements to help the General Manager support his desired outcome. For example, the report claims that picnicking is the “most significant and widest scale” impact on both species at Sharp Park. You read that right: picnicking—not habitat destruction, not lawn mowers, not even the pumping operations that caused the Fish and Wildlife Service to issue an enforcement letter to the City—is the activity we conservationists should be truly worried about, according to the RPD report.

You don’t need to be an expert to know that lawnmowers and pumping operations have killed more endangered species on the site than your throw rug and bottle of Chianti. But if you had any doubt, check out the evidence yourself at our Video Channel and watch Twain’s Frog and the Beautiful Serpent.

With absurd statements like this, we were glad to see that a peer review team had been established to critique the report. But the General Manager has now cancelled any formal peer review and is trying to push his plan through any politically expedient means at his disposal.

Fortunately, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has told San Francisco that this plan is no recovery plan at all, but is in fact a mitigation plan for the ongoing killing of two endangered species at Sharp Park. As such, San Francisco cannot implement this plan without acquiring mitigation money and securing private lands in trust: adding millions of dollars to the cost of the plan.

Moreover, the SF Weekly’s investigative journalist Peter Jamison recently wrote this cover story on Sharp Park. He found that the underlying expenses of preserving golf on the property are double what Phil Ginsburg promised the Recreation and Parks Commission and the public last November.

But in the meantime, Congresswoman Jackie Speier—who initially met with environmental groups and subsequently wrote constituent letters stating that she thought a National Park at Sharp Park would be a good outcome for the site—was secretly hosting behind-the-scenes meetings with golf privatization groups—and without any environmental groups—and introduced a federal taxpayer bailout for the golf course.

This has gone too far. It’s time for us all to stand up for the “underfrog”: Please take these four actions and help create a better public park at Sharp Park!

1. Contact Congresswoman Jackie Speier and tell her Sharp Park isn’t too big to fail: no federal bailout for an endangered species-killing golf course! If federal dollars will be part of the solution at Sharp Park, we deserve an asset in return, and the best asset would be a new National Park at Sharp Park! Call the Congresswoman at (202) 225-3531.
2. Send an e-mail to the Board of Supervisors & the Mayor and let them know you want San Francisco to partner with the National Park Service to build a better public park at Sharp Park that everyone can enjoy!
3. Volunteer with the Wild Equity Institute! Help us spread the word by talking to your neighbors about the benefits of a new National Park at Sharp Park, passing out our Sharp Park Restoration Flyer and our Save Sharp Park Beach Flyer, and attending public hearings. Sign-up by calling 415-349-5787 or sending a message to info@wildequity.org.
4. Donate to the Wild Equity Institute. Don’t have time to volunteer? Become a member of the Wild Equity Institute for as little as $10, or better yet, become a monthly donor and provide sustained support for our work!