Monday, December 14, 2009

Gil's Sharp Park Mass Email Project



Hi everybody,

Below is a message that I've sent to groups of email contacts that have sent me friendly messages, chain emails, etc. As you can see it's an attempt to blitz the email boxes of the SF Supes in favor of keeping the golf course. Look it over and if you're so inclined, you may want to send it to groups of friends/associates that you know. So far I've had a couple of responses from people who've sent emails to the supes. Here's the message:

I was going to ask the favor of sending a short message to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.


I'm sure most of you are familiar with the golf course, the Sharp Park Golf Course, owned and operated by the City of San Francisco, used by everyone from seniors to teens and everyone in between. What's going on is that an environmental group wants to shut it down.


Recently a group from Arizona, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), sued the City of San Francisco because an endangered San Francisco Garter Snake was run over by a lawn mower on the golf course. For this they want to shut down the golf course. At first they wanted to shut it down to protect the SF Garter Snake and endangered Red Legged Frogs however, this objective has changed. A report was commissioned to explore three options: 1) Shutting down the golf course and restoring acres of land to habitat; 2) Shutting down 9 holes of the golf course while restoring less acres to habitat; and 3) modifying the existing 18 hole golf course, while rehabilitating the existing lagoon to improve the habitat for the frog and the snake. The report confirmed that the last option, keeping the golf course, was the best option for restoring the habitat. However, the CBD has dismissed the report as invalid and continues to push the closure of the golf course. Now their objective is to turn the golf course into a National Park. This sounds strange but it's true.

Here's the favor I want to ask of you all. I'm going to keep this simple to do. In the following week there will be two meetings. One a hearing for public input before a subcommittee (12/16 1pm- Room 263, SF City Hall) and the other a public hearing of the SF Rec and Park Board to make a recommendation to the SF Board of Supervisors (12/17 2pm  - Room 416, SF City Hall).

Although I don't expect you to attend these meetings, if you can email the SF Board of Supervisors it will help tremendously. The leader of this movement is a man named Brent Plater, he's also a professor at SF State and Golden Gate University. He's able to recruit students to come to meetings and send emails. We, therefore need to drum up a lot of support as well. 

Although a date hasn't been set for the Board of Supervisors to deliberate this, it would be much appreciated if you could email them within the next week. Following is a format for an email, you can just cut and paste the information in the proper fields when you send it.

To: board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org

Subject: Save Sharp Park Golf Course

Paste this message:  I support the recommendation to keep Sharp Park Golf Course an 18 hole golf course.

You can of course add to the message if you like and feel free to forward this message to anyone that you feel would be interested.

If any of you want a copy of the report discussed in my message, you have my contact information below and I will gladly email a copy to you.

Even though this message is complicated, it only scratches the surface. If you want additional information, the links below are for the SF Public Golf Alliance (supporting the golf course) and for the Center for Biological Diversity and Environmental Equity (both against the golf course.)

Link for SF Public Golf Alliance:                http://www.sfpublicgolf.com/

Link for the CBD's Restore Sharp Park campaign:   http://www.restoresharppark.org/

Link for a group recently formed by Brent Plater, formally of the CBDhttp://wildequity.org/sections/9

Submitted by: Gil Anda

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