[Sustain] Action Alert: Leno's Lennar Toxic Trade - (we should never have endorsed him)

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

This toxic trade bill is now in the California Assembly, so calls 
opposing SB 792 should be made immediately to *Fiona Ma: *916-319-2012 
and *Tom Ammiano:* 916-319-2013

http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/unfair-trade-sen-leno-wants-to-give-lennar-our-clean-parkland-give-the-people-toxic-land/

*May 30, 2009*


    Unfair trade! Sen. Leno aims to give our clean parkland to Lennar,
    toxic land to the people
    <http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/unfair-trade-sen-leno-wants-to-give-lennar-our-clean-parkland-give-the-people-toxic-land/>

/*by Alicia Schwartz */

By traveling to Sacramento with Caravan for Justice III on May 26, these 
precious children are learning to stand up for their community. Will you 
stand up for them and express your outrage about Sen. Leno's land grab? 
-- Photo: Francisco Da Costa
By traveling to Sacramento with Caravan for Justice III on May 26, these 
precious children are learning to stand up for their community. Will you 
stand up for them and express your outrage about Sen. Leno's land grab? 
-- Photo: Francisco Da Costa
Sen. Mark Leno's Senate Bill 792 would allow for the transfer of clean 
parkland at Candlestick Point to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency 
for private development by Lennar and replace it with toxic land that is 
not an even exchange. Lennar, a developer that has endangered the 
community by exposing it to toxic dust from the Hunters Point Shipyard, 
is planning to build 10,000 luxury condominiums on the site as part of a 
brand new neighborhood they plan to build inside the boundaries of 
Bayview Hunters Point.

Not only is this a prime example of environmental racism, it is also a 
marker of what is to come in our community if we don't make our voices 
heard right away. SB 792 will be voted on by the full state Senate very 
soon. Read the bill here <http://www.totalcapitol.com/?keywords=SB792>.

POWER is gathering 500 letters for Sen. Mark Leno from San Franciscans 
and community based organizations everywhere who are concerned about the 
future of the Bayview Hunters Point community specifically and African 
American communities and working class communities of color broadly. If 
you want to sign the letter, contact POWER at (415) 864-8372 or 
alicia at peopleorganized.org <mailto:alicia at peopleorganized.org>. Or 
contact Sen. Mark Leno directly at (916) 651-4003, 
senator.leno at senate.ca.gov <mailto:senator.leno at senate.ca.gov> or State 
Capitol, Room 4061, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Dear Sen. Leno,

I am writing to register my opposition to Senate Bill 792 Tidelands and 
submerged lands: City and County of San Francisco: Candlestick Point and 
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. *I am in opposition to SB 792 because this 
bill offers an unfair exchange of land for the residents and families of 
Bayview Hunters Point.* The bill authorizes an exchange of parkland that 
currently benefits the neighborhood for land that is not equal to the 
original parcel and land that is currently contaminated by toxins.

*As you are aware, African American communities are disproportionately 
adversely impacted by environmental racism, and there is a long history 
of environmental hazards that have affected the health of families in 
the Bayview neighborhood.*

Eighty percent of San Francisco's sewage comes into Bayview through the 
sewage treatment plant; the neighborhood is bordered by major freeway 
thoroughfares that daily expose residents to diesel and car emissions; 
Hunters Point Naval Shipyard hazards have plagued the community since it 
closed in the early 1970s; 50 percent of neighborhood residents are 
estimated to have cancer or respiratory illnesses as a result of 
radioactive elements and other toxic inorganics being left behind by the 
U.S. Navy and other polluting industries.

Exchanging a clean piece of parkland, whose occurrence is rare in the 
community, for a polluted area would result in the state of California 
engaging in environmental racism. Giving clean land to a 
multibillion-dollar developer while providing dirty land in exchange to 
a working class African American community is environmental racism.

The priority of the state of California should be to clean the Hunters 
Point Shipyard to residential standards, in accordance with Proposition 
P, passed by 87 percent of San Francisco voters, thereby ending the 
practice of environmental racism in one of the last remaining African 
American communities in San Francisco.


      Giving clean land to a multibillion-dollar developer while
      providing dirty land in exchange to a working class African
      American community is environmental racism.

*I urge your office to oppose SB 792 as an unfair and unequal exchange 
of land that will adversely impact the residents of Bayview Hunters 
Point and the City of San Francisco as a whole.*

/Alicia Schwartz, co-director of People Organized to Win Employment 
Rights (POWER), can be reached at (415) 864-8372, ext. 305, or 
alicia at peopleorganized.org <mailto:alicia at peopleorganized.org>/


-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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