EDITORIAL: What's the rush on Bayfront Park? EDITORIAL: What's the rush on Bayfront Park? (November 09, 2005)

The more we see of Menlo Park's misguided and hasty plan to build a golf course at Bayfront Park, the more we believe a much wider and deeper investigation of the plan needs to be conducted.

After a raucous public hearing attended by more than 250 people, a deeply divided City Council voted 3-2 last week to pursue a 55-year lease with Highlands Golf, a company from Southern California that has offered to build three playing fields in Bayfront Park in return for the right to build and operate a small, 18-hole course on about 75 acres in the park. The course and playing fields would cover more than half the 160-acre park, which has park users and environmentalists up in arms.

The approval came after the Parks and Recreation Commission voted 5-0 to slow down the process so that the public could weigh in on the matter. Last week, 50 people spoke against the golf course plan, and many called for the city to proceed more slowly and look more closely at the impact of a deal that would irrevocably change the park's open-space trails and waterfowl habitat to a commercial landscape that would be out of place in this environmentally sensitive area.

The plan's biggest proponents, Mayor Mickie Winkler and council member Lee Duboc, say the deal is worth it so the city can gain three badly needed playing fields. But the Highlands Golf proposal makes clear that the fields would have to be built in designated wetlands areas, which we believe will present a virtually insurmountable hurdle for the project during the environmental review process. Without the fields, even Ms. Winkler says it may not make sense to approve the golf course.

Many other questions remain. For example, how would the huge amounts of water to irrigate the golf course be obtained, and who would pay for it?

And how would Highlands Golf finance the huge upfront costs of developing the golf course, three playing fields, if they could even be approved ($4 million to $5 million for the fields) and the environmental impact report (a typical EIR costs $200,000 to $400,000)?

The council has nothing to lose in slowing down this process so Menlo Park residents can fully debate the pros and cons. When the park was created the City Council spent months and months discussing how to use the property, finally deciding that open space was the best plan.

Today's council members should heed the wisdom of their predecessors, and make absolutely sure that trading away the city's last big chunk of open space for a second-class golf course is the highest and best use of this waterfront property. Much more work needs to be done before that decision is reached.

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