04 May 2009 - 09:24, Stan Kaufman said
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On April 30, the BOS Government Audit and Oversight Committee unanimously recommended Supervisor Mirkarimi’s Sharp Park legislation to the full BOS, which will review and act on it tomorrow. Public input at this hearing was overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation, and the committee did exactly the right thing.

Please email the supervisors to urge them to support this legislation, which calls for studies into alternate uses for Sharp Park that are consistent with the environmental problems there. The bigger reason to support this legislation, however, is simply one of the dollars that we San Francisco taxpayers are paying for an amenity that primarily benefits San Mateo county residents.

Here is a suggested message to the Supes:

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Supervisors:

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee did exactly the right thing April 30 when it unanimously recommended Supervisor Mirkarimi’s Sharp Park legislation to the full Board of Supervisors. Please support this legislation and pass it when you consider it tomorrow.

The Sharp Park golf course benefits primarily San Mateo county residents, who consume 75% of all played rounds there. Nevertheless, San Francisco taxpayers pick up the tab:

- the $18K in annual property taxes paid to San Mateo county
- the $30-300K in annual transfusions from the SF General Fund to make up for short-falls in green-fees revenues
- all the other “emergency” costs such as the recent $280K for repairs to the sea wall/pump paid out of the SF Open Space Fund
- the $450K costs of the EIR of the golf course’s impact on the resident endangered populations of snake and frog
- the $8M that SFPUC ratepayers are on the hook for to pay for the recycled irrigation project that is irrelevant without the golf course
- whatever costs will arise from criminal and civil penalties for “illegal take” of endangered species during golf course operations

At a time when San Francisco’s budget deficit of $576M (to be much larger next year) is closing recreation facilities and laying off RPD staff right here, we can no longer afford to prop up this money-losing golf course down in San Mateo county.

Pacifica residents are loudly demanding that we continue to run the golf course as it’s been run, but there are no offers of money from them to make this happen. The mayor of Pacifica was conspicuously evasive when pressed by Supervisor Mirkarimi April 30 as to what she was prepared to bring to the table. They are offering nothing. One can easily imagine the howls of outrage that would echo through San Mateo county if San Franciscans packed a Pacifica city council meeting to demand that they continue to fund an amenity up here within San Francisco’s city limits.

The reality is that the Sharp Park golf course has become a toxic asset on anyone’s books. The course lies at or below sea level at the end of a big watershed and is irremediably subject to flooding, sedimentation, and erosion that will only increase with rising sea levels. It is home to endangered species that must be protected — or else suffer major penalties from both the Feds and the state of California. And the demand for golf has been falling throughout the peninsula — 30-40% over the past decade, according to the recent Harvey Rose audit of the golf program — because of demographic changes in what people want to do for fun.

San Francisco needs to find a new plan for the Sharp Park golf course, and that is exactly what Supervisor Mirkarimi’s legislation will accomplish. I personally believe that sending the property to the GGNRA for them to deal with is by far the best idea. But if Pacifica wants to have the golf course run as it is, let them levy some bonds to buy it from us and run it on their own dime — and face the vast logistical costs and legal/financial liabilities themselves.

Either way, San Francisco cannot afford to keep doing this. Please support this legislation. It is the fiscally-responsible thing to do.

Thank you.

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Let the Supervisors know that you care about how they’re spending our tax dollars during this budget crisis!