Candlestick Park for sale for development

[dvCali]

Below is a notice that was just sent around the candlestick yahoo group. I'll forward it here. It is about a Thursday Aug. 13th meeting to discuss the trading off of Candlestick land to a private developer. Unfortunately it does not show a time for the meeting (it says "evening").

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Friends and fellow supporters of Candlestick State Recreational Area:

As most of us already know SB792 ? Senator Leno?s bill on behalf of the City and Lennar to sell off a percentage of Candlestick State Recreational Area for development ? has made it through the State Assembly and the State Senate Local Government Committee unimpeded. The bill is due to be heard before the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 19 where the Sierra Club?s lobbyist informs the San Francisco Chapter that it will pass.

Senator Leno has been exploring the willingness of the City, Lennar and the Sierra Club to compromise. Representatives of the Sierra Club in San Francisco as well as the Audubon Society and Arc Ecology met with representatives of the Mayor?s Office, Senator Leno?s Office, the Senate Natural Resources Committee, and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell last Friday. The environmental contingent was lead by Arthur Feinstein of the Sierra Club. The objective of this meeting was to hear the compromise proposal from Lennar and the City regarding the location and number of acres to be set aside for sale. While the representatives of the three environmental groups in attendance were less than thrilled with the offer, there does appear to be an opening for further negotiation.

Because of the pressure of time, Friends of Candlestick and Arc Ecology with the support of the Sierra Club are organizing a special meeting this Thursday evening at Executive Park, 5 Thomas Mellon Circle, 3rd Floor, to discuss these negotiations with other organizations and individuals concerned about the fate of the Park. Our objective is to explore the possibility of developing a strategy for remaining united and accomplishing a set of common goals during the park negotiations and perhaps beyond with an eye to the EIR process.

The Draft Agenda for the meeting is

? Discussion of individual group concerns and objectives
? Status of legislation ? Club lobbyist perspective
? Report on Club discussions with the City & Leno
? Report on organizing at the Board of Sups, other Legislators etc.
? Exploration of possible common ground on an acreage for Operations and Maintenance and the Park improvement deal
? Exploration of a final set of asks
? Next steps legislative
? Next steps in ShipStick process

We hope to see you there.

Thanks,

Claude Everhart
Friends of Candlestick

Saul Bloom
Arc Ecology

[chibichibi]

thank for alerting us to this proposed sale or development at the stick. this is nuts. so this would completely affect parking and windsurfing launch access I would assume. are they talking about the actual park/waterfront piece, or the whole space, including parking lots, etc. what's wrong with this city???

[Ulrich]

Per ARC Ecology, the meeting is at 6 p.m. Thursday, August 13.

Vangie

[sergem]

What action could we (the masses reading this) could take to get maximum effect? E-mail, fax, call - where? Thanks!

[carl]

Looks like SB792 puts Hunter's Pt Shipyard and Candlestick Pt State Park
under the control of the San Fran (county) Redevelopement Angecy.

Candlestick is a Calif state park. It is actually quite large area and has alot of land that is undeveloped (going way past the downwind pier and going over to Hunter's Pt shipyard). The developed area of the park is actually only about 1/2 the acreage. Reading the bill, it looks like they are interested in turning the land over to SFRA to develop the unused area of the park and the shipyard and also re-developing some of the blighted areas of Hunter's Pt.
Maybe I'm wrong but to me, this looks more like an opportunity to improve the park (with money coming from developement) and insure our access with SF county as custodian, rather than the state continuing to neglect it into dis-repair. (I doubt SF would allow a developer to teardown an existing park). Plus it's an opportunity for the surrounding neighborhood to improve which is sorely needed.