I re-read your email and see that a ballot measure is part of the settlement agreement. Well at least they're paying for it. But now we have to vote for something that says we like the second garage entrance in the park? That's messed up! In the negotiations of things to consider to put in there, what about: a requirement that the Concourse be accessible with bike lanes from both Fulton and Lincoln? An entirely reasonable request. No through traffic in the Concourse Removal of car parking spaces in the vicinity of the garage, not just wherever the hell in the park they want to remove the spaces from. Dave On the substance of this email, I really hope a ballot measure is unnecessary. Perhaps I don't understand the judge's ruling, but it seems if we went as a united front to the judge against widening of JFK Drive, and no "voter" showed up to protest it, the judge would permit the south entrance without widening, which is of course a damn shame but the result you're going for with the ballot measure. If you're going to negotiate something to put on the ballot, put "no through traffic in the Concourse" on there. That's a worthwhile victory. Dave At 6:13 PM -0700 7/9/05, Stephen Willis wrote:

Sorry for any duplication, but wanted SFGP Transpo WG to get this in case you are not on the staff list.

John, Susan and all,

With all due respect, I believe you missed my point. There is a meeting of the Campaign and Issues Group this week, and an important initiative of which you and Susan and I are aware, but which is not on that meeting agenda. I believe this initiative deserves attention as soon as possible and for several reasons:

1) It would mandate NO WIDENING OF MLK DRIVE from 9th Avenue and LIncoln Way to the intersection of Academy Drive, as you and Susan described. But, it also amends the original wording of Prop J, The Golden Gate Park Revitalization Act of 1998, to allow their second, unwanted garage entrance without requiring dedicated access to that second entrance from outside the Park. Wording which was originally intended to exclude any entrances from being built inside the Park will now be changed to accommodate a ruling by a partisan Republican, pro-privatization judge.

The settlement agreement we negotiated requires Warren Hellman's Music Concourse Community Partnership (MCCP) to submit an initiative for this November to stop the widening of MLK Drive from two to four traffic lanes, and will also legitimize or make legal the second garage entrance in conformance with Judge Warren's ruling of June 16th. This is not exactly a victory for The City or the Voters. Let's not forget what we're losing.

2) You and other officers of the Sierra Club and the Green Party negotiated an auto-free Pedestrian Oasis in exchange for permitting the privately-funded construction and ownership of the 800 car under ground garage. But now the leading stakeholders have all but given up on achieving the Pedestrian Oasis that was promised, because Aaron Peskin says we don't have the votes from the other Democratic Supervisors to prohibit commuter and cross-park traffic specifically.

You said they are tired of dealing with the Music Concourse issue. Several of them, including Aaron and Jake have expressed regrets that they ever supported the garage, or worked with Hellman's people in the first place. And I'm talking about Dick Young, CEO of the Music Concourse Community Partnership, and Mike Ellzey, executive director of the Concourse Authority. (Dick Young made personal threats to our paralegal investigator, Howard Herships, and Josh Hart, former Program Director for SFBC. And you told me that Mike Ellzey threatened you with financial ruin last winter, if you continued to buck the Concourse Authority or the MCCP or cause any further delays in their project.)

Through intimidation and threats, they have tried to scare their opponents, and get us to settle for a weakly-worded resolution from Ross that betrays the original Pedestrian Oasis vision that was approved by San Francisco voters. WE don't have to settle for less because the majority of Democrats on the Board refuse to support it.

You have the right to raise the bar on Ross's resolution on the Surface Circulation Plan, whether that makes it uncomfortable for Democrats or not. After all, they approved the bogus EIR and MCCP's 35 year ground lease.

3) The voters never approved the second garage entrance, and neither did the Sierra Club or you, Howard Strassner, Clayton Mansfield, Becky Evens, Denise D'Anne, Jennifer Clary, or Dave Snyder. It is my understanding that the deal you all collectively brokered with Michael Yaki and the deYoung Museum, required no garage entrances inside the park, regardless of what some corrupt activist Republican judge declares.

Judge Warren has thrown out almost all of the promises The City and Warren Hellman made seven years ago. The conflict here lies in the glaring contrast between what the deYoung and the Academy of Sciences promised you and Dave and the others over seven years ago, which provided the basis for your decision to encourage the Sierra Club to remain neutral on Prop J, and the reality of the The City's failure to follow through on any of those promises to protect the public interest and Golden Gate Park.

I appreciate your intentions to make the best of a bad situation, but the fact of the matter is that the Alliance and Save Golden Gate Park! negotiated this agreement with the City and the MCCP and we don't want to see it rubber-stamped by the Board and then go quietly to the ballot without a discussion of the full impact if it passes, and if it does not.

We also don't want to see the MLK Drive initiative portrayed as a final solution that the Green Party sponsored, or must sponsor, and thereby contribute to the MCCP/deYoung spin machine. Not widening MLK Drive is not a final solution to the problems with the garage. It was the best we could negotiate, given a really, really bad decision by a really bad Republican judge, and given the reality of an even worse panel of Appellate Court judges. We won't begin to see the real problems with the garages until they are in operation, because the EIR is trash and provides absolutely no insight to future problems.

You have the right to discuss a second voters initiative that would mandate NO MLK Drive Widening, and add on Saturday JFK Closure, and NO Music Concourse traffic other than MUNI and disabled drop off.

Respectfully yours,

Stephen Willis Save Golden Gate Park!

At 05:58 PM 7/8/2005, John Rizzo wrote:

Both Susan and I have read the main portions of the draft over the phone to Steve.

As far as releasing copies, it is up to Ross. He is sponosoring it, so he is the one to say whether an unfinished draft is to be circulated.

I talked to Ross today. He has forwarded the draft to the City Attorney to check it for accuracy and what not. The City Attorney will probably have suggestions.

This is good legislation that stops the 4 lanes in Golden Gate Park. Ross and the Green Party benefit from having sponsored the solution to this problem.

John

PS. I'm leaving town on Saturday, and won't be checking email. I return on the 17th.

...

Susan,

Insofar as you and John Rizzo are currently negotiating with Concourse Authority President Nancy Connor and MCCP's Mary Hughes the wording for a November ballot initiative to stop the widening of MLK Drive, I believe it would benefit the Campaigns and Issues WG to have your draft of the initiative as you described it to me on Wednesday.

Save Golden Gate Park! and the Alliance for Golden Gate Park, Chris Duderstadt, Janice Rothstein and myself, entered into a binding settlement agreement with the City and the Music Concourse Community Partnership almost two months ago requiring them to go back to the voters to stop the widening of MLK Drive from two to four traffic lanes, if they are going to go ahead and force their Academy Drive garage entrance inside the Music Concourse.

We negotiated this settlement because it was clear from his ruling last August, 2004, that Judge Warren was going to soon give them everything they wanted, and that was the only environmental mitigation we could extract from the other side, along with $30,000 for their initiative, and $30,000 for pedestrian improvements in the Concourse.

This process that you and John are involved in with Nancy Connor and Mary Hughes, including the wording and development of this initiative, needs to be completely transparent to us and to the public. And the final initiative wording will need approval from not just the City Attorney, and MCCP's attorney, but our attorney as well. ...And then an endorsement or not from the San Francisco Green Party.

Please add this initiative for discussion to your agenda for your July 11th Campaigns and Issues meeting.

How does Ross or the Green Party benefit from sponsoring this initiative? It has to be sponsored by at least four of the Supervisors, so why not let those Democrats who supported and ratified the sham Garage EIR and the MCCP's ground lease/privatization of the Park for the next 35 years sponsor the MLK initiative??

Your feedback is appreciated,

Steve Willis Save Golden Gate Park!

"Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." - Goethe

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