Supervisor Olague Introduces New Legislation for Sharp Park

Our work always seems to heat up in the Fall, and this year is no different. Supervisor Christina Olague has brought new legislation to City Hall, legislation that will defend San Francisco’s Natural Areas Program from anti-wild forces in San Francisco.

In 2005, San Francisco submitted its Significant Natural Resource Areas Management plan for environmental review—a plan that contains modest restoration goals for lands at Sharp Park managed by the City’s Natural Areas Program, but left all other Sharp Park lands, including the endangered species-killing and money-losing golf course found there, unchanged.

At the time, Wild Equity staff and others requested that the City consider a more ambitious restoration opportunity: to restore Sharp Park Golf Course, the money-losing, endangered species-killing golf course in suburban San Mateo County that San Francisco has been subsidizing with taxpayer dollars for years.

But San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department responded—in writing—in no uncertain terms: any changes to Sharp Park Golf Course proper could only be considered through a separate planning process.

But in 2011 the Recreation and Park Department, under the duplicitous leadership of Phil Ginsburg, went back on its written word. It jammed a multi-million dollar golf course redevelopment plan into a chapter of the environmental review document for the Natural Areas Program.

We think Phil Ginsburg is jamming this unrelated, indefensible project into a separate environmental review document for one reason only: he knows that standing on its own no reasonable legislator would ever condone it.

Supervisor Olague agrees, and that’s why she’s introduced legislation that will order the Recreation and Park Department to segregate the golf course plan out of the Natural Areas environmental review document, so that each project can stand or fall on their own merits.

Hearing details are still forthcoming, but we’ll need you to show your support for this critical legislation soon—so keep your Monday afternoons free for the next few weeks!