Urgent: Another Sharp Park Attack: Please attend SF Supervisors Hearing Monday, Nov. 19, 1 p.m.at SF City Hall

Dear Public Golf Alliance Members:  Please attend, if you can, on Monday, Nov. 19, 1 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall, Supervisors Legislative Chambers, Room 250 (at top of the grand staircase) a public hearing by the SF Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee, at which an Anti-Sharp Park Golf Course resolution will be debated on Agenda Item #5.  See the Notice of Meeting and the Resolution.  Members of the Land Use Committee are:  Supervisors Eric Mar, Scott Weiner, and Malia Cohen.  Also, please send an e-mail to the Committee members (with cc to Supervisor Elsbernd and Mayor Lee); see sample e-mail, below.  And send me a copy; I will collect the e-mails and deliver hard copies to the Committee at the public meeting.   The Olague Resolution would sever Sharp Park from the ongoing Natural Areas Environmental Impact Report process, thereby requiring San Francisco to start over in its Sharp Park planning.  Please come  to the Land Use Committee meeting and testify that you want to see the Natural Areas Plan EIR go forward, including the combination golf course renovation/species habitat recovery plan that was approved by the Rec & Park Commission in December, 2009.  The public has spent years on this fight, and San Francisco public agencies have spent thousands of hours of staff time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultants fees in development of the Sharp Park golf course renovation and habitat recovery plan.  And of course members of the public have collectively expended thousands of hours of their time in commenting and attending public meetings.  It would be irresponsible to unravel all of this time, money, and effort.  The City has better uses for its limited financial resources.  If you cannot attend in person, please send an e-mail to the Supervisors, with copies to Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, strongly stating your opposition to the Olague Ordinance.  See a draft of such an e-mail, below, with the supervisors' e-mail addresses.  That draft e-mail briefly recites the procedural history of the Sharp Park plan and all of the public meetings, hearings, etc., over recent years.  Likely you have attended and/or written letters, and are familiar with all this process.  But if you need more details, send me an e-mail request, and I will respond.     Be certain to put your own home address and phone number on your e-mail comment.  Send a copy of your e-mails/letters to me, and I will copy them and carry hard copies to the Committee meeting.   RSVP:  Please let us know if you will be able to attend.  We will meet you outside the Supervisors' chambers at 12:40 p.m.  Circulate this note to your friends, and bring 2 friends to the meeting.  Thanks.  Save Sharp Park! San Francisco Public Golf Alliance Richard Harris  _____________________ Sample E-Mail _____________________ San Francisco Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee    alisa.miller@sfgov.org Supervisor Eric Mar         eric.mar@sfgov.org Supervisor Scott Weiner  scott.wiener@sfgov.org Supervisor Malia Cohen   malia.cohen@sfgov.org Re:  Please Vote No on Resolution to Sever Sharp Park from the Natural Areas EIR File No. 120619 Land Use, etc. Committee Hearing November 19, 2012, Agenda No. 5 Dear Supervisors,             I am a public course golfer, and I support the San Francisco Rec & Park Department's plan to save the historic and popular Sharp Park Golf Course, while at the same time protecting the environment by recovering frog and snake habitat in the golf course's wetlands.              Please vote "No" on the Sharp Park resolution, File No. 120619, which would require the City's Rec & Park and Planning Departments to start over on the Environmental Review process for the City's Sharp Park plan (overwhelmingly endorsed by the Rec & Park citizens advisory committee and unanimously adopted by the Rec & Park Commission in December, 2009).   Supervisor Olague's Resolution would mean a colossal waste of public time, money, and effort that has gone into the Sharp Park plan.  We cannot afford such public waste -- especially not now, in hard economic times, when we need to spend public money carefully.                  The City's Sharp Park plan is the result of more than a dozen public meetings in both San Francisco and Pacifica since April, 2009, by several San Francisco public agencies, including the Rec & Park Commission and its citizens advisory committee ("PROSAC"), the SF Public Utilities Commission (on the related issue of the Sharp Park Recycled Water Project), and the Board of Supervisors and its City Audit and Neighborhood Services and Government Audit and Oversight committees.                  Sharp Park has been part of the Significant Natural Areas Management Plan since the initial draft plan in 1995.  The golf course was very explicitly the subject of the Environmental Impact public "scoping" written comments and public meetings in both San Francisco and Pacifica in May, 2009, and again in both public testimony and written comment to the Planning Commission on the Draft Environmental Impact Report in 2011 and 2012.                 All of this represents thousands of hours of paid consultants' time public agency staff time over many years, and yet more thousands of hours of individual citizens' time in submitting written comments and appearing at the public hearings.   Supervisor Olague's Resolution would let all of this money, time, and effort go to waste. For these reasons, I respectfully request your "No" vote on File No. 120619. Yours truly, [your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address] cc:    Mayor Ed Lee                                ed.lee@sfgov.org         President of the Board David Chiu    david.chiu@sfgov.org         Supervisor Sean Elsbernd               sean.elsbernd@sfgov.org         Clerk of the Board of Supervisors     angela.calvillo@sfgov.org Donations are greatly appreciated. To donate, please visit our website: Donations Page

We are on Twitter (@SFPublicGolf), Facebook and our website Contact us at info@sfpublicgolf.com   Submitted by Richard Harris