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Publication Date: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 LETTERS: Wide support for keeping Bayfront Park
LETTERS: Wide support for keeping Bayfront Park
(November 09, 2005)
Bayfront plan a glorified treadmill
Editor:
To counteract the outpouring of opposition to the conversion of part of Menlo Park's Bayfront Park to golf and playfields, Mayor Mickie Winkler has been promoting a 50/50 split between active and passive recreation as equitable and reasonable. In fact her logic and arithmetic are highly misleading.
The Mayor states that the golf course takes 75 acres of public open space and that the taking will not significantly interfere with the current passive uses on the parkland remaining.
The fact is that the remainder described by the Mayor as being preserved "in its 'natural' state" for the current users will be the existing paved perimeter roads, paths, parking lots and some areas too steep for walking; views from the two remaining hills will overlook the planned sports fields, the Bayfront Expressway and the lands of Cargill Salt to the west that are currently under threat from a huge residential development. The Mayor's vision for the park sounds more like a glorified outdoor treadmill.
Not only will the golf course privatize about half of the park but it will also endanger anyone who ventures within range of errant golf balls, missiles that could severely injure anyone struck by a ball. The nine-acre tidal pond, described by the Mayor as "flat wetlands," will be destroyed by constructing the proposed sports fields. This hardly constitutes a vision of public land where quiet contemplation of nature or of life's challenges can occur.
The Mayor's 50/50 split is certainly not a benign division of our park. Bayfront Park was conceived and approved as regional open space. There is no policy that entitles a fleeting majority of the Menlo Park City Council to carve up public open space for limited private uses.
Steve Schmidt, former mayor
Central Avenue, Menlo Park
Golf course plan ignores wetlands goal
Editor:
Menlo Park's Bayfront Park with a golf course, three ballfields, and a perimeter trail - what's wrong with this picture?
It blatantly ignores the regional goal of restoring San Francisco Bay's wetlands. Why should we care about wetlands? For many reasons. Wetlands serve as filters for surface and groundwaters, they provide vital habitat for many species of plants and animals, and they help in natural flood control.
Bayfront Park is bounded by the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project - the largest tidal wetland restoration project on the West Coast. More than 16,500 acres of salt ponds will be converted to wetland habitats, restoring 25 square miles of shoreline. Flora and fauna that have not been seen there in more than a century will return. It's just wrong for Menlo Park to consider developing Bayfront Park within this larger context.
Over the decades more than 80 percent of San Francisco Bay's tidal wetlands have been converted to other uses. Likewise, the immediate watersheds have been extensively altered by urban and industrial development. Laws enacted in the past four decades have focused on improving the Bay's water quality, minimizing habitat losses, increasing populations of endangered species, and enlarging the surface area of the Bay."
Based on last week's vote, the regional ethic of wetland restoration does not speak to council members Nicholas Jellins, Lee Duboc, and Mayor Mickie Winkler. They need to step back and look at the bigger picture. They are clearly out of sync with the desires of the greater Bar Area community.
Judy Rocchio
Walnut Street, Menlo Park
City should ask Bohannon to build fields
Editor:
Recently David Bohannon approached the Menlo Park City Council with a request to rezone multiple properties near Bayfront Park and Marsh Road. The City Council should consider requiring that the three sports fields and dog park now under consideration at Bayfront Park instead be put on Mr. Bohannon's property, as a condition of all this rezoning.
Lighted, Astroturf sports fields in a light industrial area would not affect migratory birds or nocturnal animals, nor nearby neighbors. Further, because the land under the astroturf would be firm soil, not moving landfill or previous tidal pond, the chances of the fields maintaining their usefulness would be much higher.
And then maybe we can get back to discussing other avenues to increase revenue for Bayfront Park, which was the original problem.
Elizabeth Lasensky
Fremont Street, Menlo Park
Mixed use concept would serve more residents
Editor:
Let's reduce this (park issue) down to the lowest common denominator:
1. This Methane Park currently serves a relatively small portion of Menlo Park's citizens.
2. The mixed-use concept (golf course, athletic fields and a portion left as it is) would serve more of Menlo Park's citizenry and provide an income stream, contrary to the cash drain we now experience.
The leaders behind the backlash against progress are the usual suspects. Their history is one of trying for years to block the widening of Sand Hill Road and thankfully failing. They were also part of the council (along with Nicholas Jellins), who voted for all that dangerous street furniture on Santa Cruz Avenue, and thankfully they failed there also.
I read this as two strikes against them. Hopefully, they will fail in blocking positive change for Menlo Park and this would be three strikes and they will be called out.
Patrick White
Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park
No need to rush decision on park
Editor:
To the Menlo Park City Council:
My wife and I have been supportive of the council's efforts in recent years to help remedy the city's housing shortages, better maintain the roads and utilities, improve the city parks, encourage businesses, and manage the budget. Thus we were disappointed to read that you are considering turning the best parts of the Bayfront Park over to a golf course developer. I suspect that we are part of a much broader range of concerned citizens than the proponents realize.
If this plan is implemented, which seems to be a strong goal of some city staff and council members, it would be a decision that generations of present and future Menlo Park residents would regret. We appreciate that the staff and council are doing all they can to find revenues to plug budget holes, but the costs of $200,000 a year or so to maintain the present open space, and the comparatively small (and probably optimistic) revenues for the city projected by the golf course developer, make this look like an act of desperation by the city's leaders to sell out such a heritage for such a cheap price.
Like many, I have seen the Bayfront site evolve for some 40 years from a city dump to its present open-space parkland. My wife and I walk there as often as three or four times a week, and have been very grateful to the visionary council and staff from the past who presumably supported the effort to contour the last stages of the landfills into a variety of hills, valleys and shoreline trails. While this is Menlo Park's only significant open space, its hills offer the best views of any nearby city toward the new National Wildlife Refuge as well as views from Mt. Hamilton to Mt. Tamalpias to Mt. Diablo to the Santa Cruz Mountains, plus three major bridges and many of the cities surrounding the Bay.
In any case, please do not act hastily. Too much is at stake here. From the recent news reports, it almost appears that some proponents are "railroading" this decision as if it was already a completed back-room deal. It is no wonder that they have not only stirred up opposition from predictable opponents, but also from many of us who have supported the council.
Please slow this process down, seek very broad community input, consider more alternatives, and get to know this piece of land in all of its four seasons and throughout its tidal ranges. We do hope that more and more people will come to appreciate what we have now in our Bayfront Park before the city makes a regrettable decision.
Jane and Boyd Paulson, Jr.
Sherwood Way, Menlo Park
Space needed for sports fields
Editor:
I am in favor of the City Council approving further negotiations for the development of golf facilities and three playing fields at Bayfront Park.
As active parents of two active boys, my wife and I appreciate the prospect of new fields relieving Menlo Park's crowded and overused existing fields and a new public golf course. We believe that the proposal can result in commendable social, athletic and relaxation opportunities for many citizens in all neighborhoods of Menlo Park.
The proposal represents the opportunity to: (1) reverse the $300,000 of waste fees associated with Bayfront Park and currently imposed on Menlo Park residents, because of the proposal's income generation potential, (2) immediately secure $4 million to $5 million of contributions to the city's infrastructure, that is, the cost of the fields to be contributed, when the city is facing a $2.9 million deficit, and (3) secure good local jobs for those in the Belle Haven neighborhood.
Projects that serve a broad base in the Menlo Park community on reasonable economic terms should be embraced when they are available.
Peter Suhr
Cotton Street, Menlo Park
Looking back at a 1980s decision
Editor:
In 1981 and 1982 Menlo Park was facing a decision regarding open space.
The decision before the Planning Commission and City Council at that time was whether or not to buy "the hill" from Blackwell Developers or allow the hill to be developed. The council decided that they could not afford to buy and allowed Blackwell to develop the land into what now can only be described as a very upscale Colma.
To all Menlo Park residents who never walked the pristine "hill," it was beautiful, peaceful, 360-degree views of the Bay Area, an incomparable space, better even than Palo Alto's much envied Foothill Park because it was so much more accessible.
We now face a similar decision. Money versus open space. I hope that at this juncture we have people on our council with a vision of the future. We have enough ball fields. We have no open space save the Bayfront Park.
There is no place we can go on a Saturday or Sunday morning to spread out a blanket, enjoy solitude and not dodge balls or be asked to move to make way for a prescheduled game. We play enough games already.
Triona Gogarty
Arbor Road, Menlo Park
A soccer mom who values open space
Editor:
I have lived in the immediate Menlo Park area for 37 years, with a brief hiatus for graduate school. I love Menlo Park. I returned to live here largely because I missed this city so much and find it unique in this area for its natural, woodsy beauty.
I am also a soccer mom; my children attend Laurel and Encinal schools, and my husband was an AYSO coach for my son's team this past season.
I hope that the council members do not fall into the trap of believing that all parents, or even all parents of soccer players, would like to see the current proposal for Bayfront Park (for golf/playing fields) enacted.
I visit Bayfront Park regularly, with and without my children. We hike there, we fly kites there, we notice the birds and other wildlife there, and we together, as a family, enjoy the expansive vistas of the Bay.
Bayfront Park is one way I teach my children about what it means to attend to nature, to appreciate the slower rhythms of life in our fast-paced world.
I, and they, find it especially compelling that natural beauty can be found so readily at a site that once was used solely for landfill. To my mind, Bayfront Park is a modern success story for reclaiming the open space that makes our city a city worth living in.
Certainly, the need for field space is frustrating for many parents whose children are among the 4,000 soccer players crammed onto the 26 fields which Menlo Park currently puts to use for children's sports. Since many sports teams practice twice a week, plus weekends, those fields are overtaxed. But I submit that the two or three extra play fields that this proposal includes will not, ultimately, solve this problem.
If it is sports fields that we need, could we not finance them through a parcel tax, ditching the (thoroughly unnecessary) golf course idea, and find a different place to locate such sports fields (at least researching the options thoroughly)? If the information from last night was correct, Bayfront Park isn't well-suited to sports fields, in any case; the land is too unstable to support them.
I sincerely hope that the council has the courage necessary to resist the proposal to develop Bayfront Park. It is decisions such as this one that can change the flavor of a city forever, and I cringe at the thought that Menlo Park will become just another of the many overdeveloped Bay area cities.
Karen Peterson-Iyer
San Clemente Drive, Menlo Park
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