Last week San Francisco took an important step towards a healthy and sustainable future for Sharp Park. The Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance that directs the City to negotiate a long-term management agreement for Sharp Park with the National Park Service, and then review that agreement as a proposed project under the California Environmental Quality Act. The City will be able to consider all feasible alternatives to the National Park Service agreement during this process. It will then select a future for Sharp Park that provides the best public policy outcomes for the land.

But golf purists and the Chamber of Commerce would rather you not have a say about Sharp Park’s future. They are lobbying Mayor Ed Lee right now, demanding that he veto this common-sense ordinance.

What are these golf development interests afraid of? And will they be able to subvert popular political will and convince the Mayor to sanction their back room golf bailout with his veto pen?

Not if you call the Mayor today and demand that he support this reasonable ordinance. The future of Sharp Park should be based on the merits—not what the golf lobby and developers are able to extract behind closed doors.

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An extraordinary victory for people and the environment was won this week when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to begin restoration planning with the National Park Service for Sharp Park, a City-owned wetland in Pacifica.

A restoration vision for Sharp Park.

For many years the City has been operationg a money-losing, endangered species-killing golf course on the property. The new ordinance requires the City to pursue a new vision for the land—a national park vision that provides recreation everyone can enjoy while saving San Francisco money.

How the Campaign Was Won: Subcommittee Turnout

The victory was won this week, but involved years of grassroots campaigning. It culminated on December 5 when we delivered a massive turnout to a subcommittee hearing on the ordinance. Our supporters filled the hearing, spilled into the hallway, and filled the overflow rooms with turquoise T-shirts—the emblematic color of the San Francisco Garter Snake.

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December 6, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

Brent Plater, Wild Equity Institute, (415) 572-6989
Michelle Myers, Sierra Club, (415) 646-6930
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357

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After a lengthy public hearing today, the Community Operations and Neighborhood Services subcommittee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors forwarded Avalos’ Sharp Park Ordinance for a full board vote tomorrow, Dec. 6. The vote will likely happen around 4:30pm.

Dozens of supporters from community organizations, neighborhood park groups, environmental advocates, and people from San Mateo County and Pacifica attended to support the ordinance. The ordinance would initiate a negotiation between the National Park Service and the City and County of San Francisco to transfer land management and build a new national park on the land.

There’s still time to contact your supervisors. Supervisor David Chiu [(415) 554-7450], Supervisor Jane Kim [(415) 554-7970], Supervisor Scott Wiener [(415) 554-6968], and Supervisor Malia Cohen [(415) 554-7670] all need to hear from you. Feel free to contact them right away!

November 30, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:

Brent Plater, Wild Equity Institute, (415) 572-6989
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357
Michelle Myers, Sierra Club, San Francisco Bay Chapter, (415)-646-6930

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At long last, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is set to vote on an ordinance that will build a new national park at Sharp Park! Please stand up for the “underfrog” by attending the hearing on Monday, Dec. 5, 10am at San Francisco City Hall, Room 250, and tell the Supervisors your support restoring Sharp Park!

On Dec. 5, San Francisco will vote to save it’s namesake serpent.

At this hearing the Board’s City Operations and Neighborhood Services subcommittee ("CONS") will vote on an ordinance introduced by Supervisor John Avalos—who also chairs CONS—and improved with feedback from planners, city attorneys, and neighborhood and community groups who support restoring Sharp Park.

Sharp Park Golf Course loses hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, kills two endangered species, and is eroding away as our climate warms and sea level rises. Despite all these constraints, some golfers are demanding a taxpayer bailout for the golf course so they can continue to play subsidized golf on unsustainable land.

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A new report issued by SPUR (the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association) makes several recommendations that support building a new national park at Sharp Park. It also provides helpful suggestions that have improved legislation pending before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

“SPUR’s report makes clear that the City of San Francisco must immediately cease all activities that harm endangered species at Sharp Park, and begin a process that builds a better public park on the land,” said Brent Plater, Executive Director of the Wild Equity Institute. “SPUR’s comments have also been incorporated into Supervisor Avalos’ Sharp Park Ordinance: substitute language now ensures restoration planning occurs in a collaborative and deliberative process, and we thank SPUR for helping make these processes possible.”

Among other things, SPUR’s report recommends that:

• Over the next 1-3 years “the city should proceed as quickly as possible to implement a legally sound plan to restore and protect frog and snake populations”
• Over the next 3-10 years “SFRPD should evaluate the feasibility of partnership with another entity to manage and/or operate the site, including the GGNRA”
• Over the next 5-50 years “SFRPD should consider a change of land use for the entire Sharp Park site. A more naturalistic setting, including an enlarged lake with an outlet to the ocean, may provide better habitat conditions and recreational opportunities, and be less expensive to manage on a day-to-day basis than a frequently flooded golf course”

SPUR also made suggestions to help improve legislation pending at the Board of Supervisors. Recognizing that changes at Sharp Park deserve to be made through a deliberative process, Supervisor John Avalos’ Sharp Park Ordinance makes clear that San Francisco must only move forward with a new management agreement at Sharp Park if the National Park Service agrees to partner with the City, and only after scrupulously complying with the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA"). If either CEQA compliance or partnerships with the National Park Service are not possible, the City’s obligations under the ordinance end.

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On November 18, 2011, the Honorable Susan Illston will hear oral argument in the Wild Equity Institute’s lawsuit against the money-losing and endangered species-killing Sharp Park Golf Course. All supporters of our campaign to restore Sharp Park are welcome to attend the hearing. The hearing will begin no earlier than 9:00am, and will occur at the United States District Court in San Francisco. E-mail us if you think you will attend so we can help you prepare for security clearance at the court house.

At the hearing, Judge Illston may finally provide relief to the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake, both of whom have been illegally killed by Sharp Park Golf Course for several years. Our coalition, which includes Surfrider, the Sierra Club, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Center for Biological Diversity, & Sequoia Audubon, will be represented by Wild Equity Institute Executive Director Brent Plater and the the environmental law firm Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal.

Dead California red-legged frog egg masses and chopped San Francisco garter snakes
have been all too common at Sharp Park Golf Course.

Judge Illston will review our request for preliminary injunctive relief, relief that will keep both endangered species safe from harm until a full trial can be conducted. If granted, our request will halt pumping activities that harm the California red-legged frog’s egg masses, and stop mowing and golf cart activities that have killed San Francisco garter snakes on holes 9-18 at Sharp Park.

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Watch this short video to learn about the problems facing Sharp Park,
and Supervisor Avalos’ bold legislative solution.

Supervisor John Avalos recently introduced legislation to repurpose Sharp Park Golf Course into a new public park in partnership with the National Park Service. Repurposing Sharp Park is a sustainable and common sense solution to the economic, ecological, and recreational troubles facing this golf course. Through this legislation, Sharp Park will become a new National Park that provides more public access for recreation, saves San Francisco money, sustainably addresses sea-level rise, and helps two endangered species recover.

The legislation has been endorsed by the following groups and individuals:

• Action for Animals
• Arriba Juntos
• Assemblyman Tom Ammiano
• Golden Gate Audubon Society
• Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
• Nature in the City
• Neighborhood Parks Council
• Pacifica Shorebird Alliance
• Potrero Hill Democratic Club
• San Francisco Naturalist Society
• Save The Frogs
• Sequoia Audubon Society
• Sunset Youth Services
• Surfrider Foundation, San Francisco Chapter

In addition, two-dozen Bay Area golfers have expressed their support for repurposing Sharp Park! Sharp Park Golf Course is San Francisco’s worst performing municipal golf course, and it contributes to the financial problems facing the oversupplied golf market in the Bay Area. Closing Sharp Park Golf Course will allow the City to redirect funds to its better golf courses, improving the golf experience in San Francisco. Moreover, the Avalos legislation grants Pacifica residents the same rates that San Francisco residents receive at San Francisco’s five other public golf courses, dramatically increasing access to affordable golf for existing Sharp Park Golf Course patrons.

Are you a San Francisco Golfer? Download and send in this letter expressing your support for building a new National Park at Sharp Park!

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San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program was to be one of the great urban conservation programs in America. But after years of misguided political beatings, the program has lost integrity. The program recently released a Draft Environmental Impact Report for its program management plan—but the plan has been radically altered, particularly at Sharp Park.

The new Sharp Park plan incorporates an 18-hole golf course into the “recovery” area for the San Francisco garter snake and the California red-legged frog—even though the golf course is the primary threat to both species’ existence at Sharp Park. The plan also suggests that Sharp Park Golf Course is an historic resource—even though the City’s own Historic Preservation Commission could not concur that the golf course retains historic integrity. Based on these misguided beliefs, the Draft Significant Natural Resource Area Management Plan Environmental Impact Report refused to consider a full restoration alternative at Sharp Park.

Watch this annotated audio excerpt of the Historic Preservation Commission hearing.

The Wild Equity Institute submitted comments opposing the Sharp Park portion of the Significant Natural Resource Area Management Plan, as did the Sierra Club, Golden Gate Audubon Society, Nature in the City, and many other conservation organizations.

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