The development of this ballot initiative was closely held until last Friday, when it was released by Ross's office. The wording of the initiative does not violate our settlement agreement with the MCCP, but, rather, may be the best possible wording that we can get, given the absence of pressure on the other Board Democrats, or the Mayor. They're the ones calling the shots in case you haven't noticed. Not Ross. While the MCCP long ago transferred their responsibility for creating the "Pedestrian Oasis" Surface Improvement Plan to the Rec and Parks Commission, along with the costs, according to Susan they recently threatened to withdraw the MLK ballot initiative if the "stakeholders" were to demand limits to dropoff or commuter traffic in the Music Concourse Surface Circulation Plan. These assholes play hardball at every venue, and they always have. Susan and John and Dennis Antenore believe this wording including possible transit use is the best possible version they can get the Democrats on the Board to agree to support. So their inability to demand stronger wording goes to the heart of the problem. We had over eight months to develop this into a critical grass roots issue of pedestrian safety and public accountability, but there was no serious committment by Green "organizers" or the SFBC, or the Sierra Club leadership to pressure the Democratic Party leadership. Therein lies our corruption, in the failure of our leaders to act, and our unwillingness to confront corrupt Democrats. There is no political will on the part of the SFGP, or the original visionaries including John Rizzo, Dave Snyder, or any of the Sierra Club ExComm "environmentalists" who negotiated the "auto-free pedestrian oasis," to actually hold the Democratic Party machine, including Warren Hellman and Gavin Newsom accountable to their promises. Now that the garage(s) are almost completely built all of a sudden, there is all of this denial about the degree to which we were slammed by the Courts, including an Appellate Court which eighteen months ago lifted a preliminary injunction allowing over $20 million worth of Pedestrian Tunnels to be demolished. Dave knew the risks as he led the environmentalists into the negotiations with MIchael Yaki for the auto-free Pedestrian Oasis. He told me several years ago that he raised the red flag of caution, as they were approached to make a deal. He told me that he determined "we" had a lot more to lose by not dealing, than we had to gain, so "we" went forward. Now, feigning supreme concern for the only "concession" that we, The Alliance for GG Park, extracted from the MCCP, Dave comes in at this late date to provide some guidance. Stephen Willis Save Golden Gate Park! Katherine Roberts <grrlfriday@scorcher.org> wrote: Dear D-5 and SFBCers, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is holding a meeting today at 11 a.m. to discuss whether he should sign off on the ballot measure proposed by John Rizzo of the Sierra Club and Susan King of the Green Party. Although the genesis of this proposed initiative is shrouded in secrecy (which is its own issue), it appears that Mary Hughes of Warren Hellman's front group, the MCCP, and possibly the Museum trustees' legal team had a hand in writing it. The initiative purports to extract a promise not to widen MLK Jr. Drive in "exchange" for adding an amendment to Prop J which legalizes having an entrance inside the Park. Prop J clearly states that such an entrance is illegal. That means we would be taking an already horribly flawed and problematic document (Prop J) and making it worse instead of better. The second thing this initiative does wrong is that it _doesn't_ prohibit turning MLK into a four-lane road -- which is supposedly the "concession" _we_ got. Instead, it only prohibits widening MLK to accommodate "privately-owned vehicles". Nothing would stop them from building dedicated lanes for taxis, limos, and tour buses -- the only vehicular traffic the museums really care about. Shades of Prop J -- voting in an initiative that allows them to roll all over us and get exactly what they want -- and this time we would be working to help them get it. Another classic bait-and-switch -- which is why I'm calling this one "Prop J Redux". I'm leaving out arguments about the legality of all this -- i.e. the fact that the MCCP violated Prop J by siting an entrance inside the Park, got caught by citizen watchdogs, responded by coming back with something even worse, found a corrupt judge to validate that, and are now forcing all of us to bust our butts to implement the plan they wanted in the first place -- while conveniently allowing Mike Ellzey to scapegoat the watchdogs for causing all this trouble in the first place. For the record, Judge Warren's validation on the project is _not_ a final ruling, and Trees Not Cars is appealing it in its entirety. No polls were done by either side to determine the so-called "winnability" of any proposal. I've got an idea: why don't we do something truly shocking and try to create what we really want -- no entrance inside the Park and no widening of MLK -- or else step aside, stop wasting our energy on all of this, and let them stew in their own juices. In a democracy, people have the power to vote for anything they want. Why waste this awesome power on something this mediocre? Please call Ross at 554-7630 and tell him _DO_NOT_ sign off on this initiative. We need one more bit of flawed legislation like we need a hole in the head. If we haven't learned this from Prop J, we haven't learned anything. Peace, Katherine Roberts _______________________________________________ Transpo mailing list Transpo@sfgreens.org https://list.sfgreens.org/mailman/listinfo/transpo "Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." - Goethe __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com