Time to Standup for the Underfrog!

Restore Sharp Park!

Folks,

Thank you for your interest in creating a new National Park at Sharp Park! We’ve got three important actions for you to take ASAP in this message: two from your chair, and one very much out of it.

1. E-mail the Recreation and Parks Commission and demand that they reject the Recreation and Parks Department’s Proposal to move forward with an all-golf alternative at Sharp Park. Send an E-mail now to recpark.commission@sfgov.org.
2. Call 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 we are going to get federal dollars involved, we deserve to gain an asset in return, and the best asset would be a new National Park at Sharp Park! Call 650-342-0300.
3. Attend the Recreation and Parks Commission hearing on November 19, 2pm at San Francisco’s City Hall, Room 416, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, in San Francisco. Tell the Commission we deserve better than the all-golf alternative proposed by the Recreation and Parks Department!

Read on:

Last week 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 selecting an all-golf alternative at Sharp Park, and relegating the endangered species on the site to the portions of Sharp Park we know will be underwater as climate change occurs 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 this issue on KQED’s Forum.

The report contains many surreal statements to help the General Manager reach this conclusion. 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 YouTube site by viewing 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 now Phil Ginsburg is trying to bypass the peer review and is planning on presenting his recommendation as an action item to the Recreation and Parks Commission next Thursday, November 19, at 2pm.

And in the meantime, Congresswoman Jackie Speier wants to offer a federal bailout for the golf course: she is proposing an earmark of federal money to subsidize the golf course if San Francisco decides it doesn’t want to spend anymore money on the course.

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

1. E-mail the Recreation and Parks Commission and demand that they reject Ginsburg’s rush to judgment about Sharp Park. Send an E-mail now to recpark.commission@sfgov.org.
2. Call 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 we are going to get federal dollars involved, we deserve to gain an asset in return, and the best asset would be a new National Park at Sharp Park! Call 650-342-0300.
3. Attend the Recreation and Parks Commission hearing on November 19, 2pm at San Francisco’s City Hall, Room 416, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, in San Francisco. Tell the Commission we deserve better than the all-golf alternative proposed by Phil Ginsburg!

Thank you,

Brent Plater