Protect and improve West Sharp Park

... and reject extreme environmentalism.  (The following is a circulating letter and message from Mike Bell, West Sharp Park resident).

Dear neighbors,

West Sharp Park community
and neighborhood in our City.

I attended a meeting in SF on Wednesday morning, July 13, 2016. The topic was San Francisco Littoral Cell Coordinating Network. The chairman of the meeting was non-other than our own City Councilman, John Keener. Even though it was apparent that the planning for this meeting had been going on for quite a while, no other Pacifica City staff or Council persons had been notified with enough time to schedule for attendance. The purpose of the meeting was to organize and figure out how to capitalize on a $200,000 grant from the California Natural Resources Agency to expand the influence and POWER of the SF Littoral Cell Network. This is a relatively new bureaucracy trying to gain control of policy around erosion and sand/sediment migration on the Northern California Coastline.

This includes the creation of non-negotiable policy requirements pertaining to rock revetments, artificial reefs, sand management and sea walls to protect the coast.  

The Pacifica residents who were properly notified and did attend, completely support John Keener’s strident belief that all of Pacifica, west of Highway One, is doomed to be under water by the turn of the century and therefor all investments of time and resources on any land west of Highway One should be stopped immediately and be replaced with a plan for “managed retreat”. This of course would include the prevention of improvements in the Palmetto Small Business District, the development of the Old Waste Water Treatment Plant on Beach Blvd, building a new library, maintenance of the Sharp Park Golf Course, maintenance of the pier, maintenance of the promenade, support of Pacifica’s largest per-capita stock of affordable housing, maintenance and promotion of historical buildings and last but not least the building of a seawall to replace our failing “retaining wall” on Beach Blvd. Needless to say this is a serious threat to everyone living and working in West Sharp Park.

John Keener has been very cagey with most of the public about his personal Sea Level Rise plans for Pacifica. Last Monday night at the Council meeting he was forced to show his hand, partially revealing his extreme belief that West Sharp Park should be abandoned. He used his power of authority to single handedly prevent a Library Bond consideration to even come to a public vote. Whether you support the building of a new library or not is irrelevant. At the very least, this city wide decision belongs to the voting Citizens of Pacifica. In a functional democracy we can’t  be denied a vote because of the selective application of the belief system held by one man and his support group. No doubt our weather and sea levels continue to change, as they have for millions of years. Our challenge is to be scientific and factually correct about the extent and timing of extraordinary Sea Level Rise events and not act hastily or out of fear or worst, conflating it with anti-growth schemes.  

If you didn’t want a new library anyway, why should you care?
You should care because this is the just the tip of John Keener’s ideological iceberg. He and several of his supporters in Pacifica have no intention of doing anything to promote the quality of life and safety in West Sharp Park and many other areas of coastal Pacifica. We are seeing his tactics beginning to take shape and we should be very concerned.  We all pay taxes and support Pacifica in many ways. We have a right and a duty to speak out and protect our enjoyment of living in this beautiful town.

Attendance at next Thursday’s Emergency Council meeting is very important.  It was called for by fair minded leaders to try and mitigate this “left hook” thrown by John Keener and to restore the public’s right to vote on a public issue. Whether or not you support the building of a new library is your personal business which should be determined by a vote. More importantly however we need to challenge the selfish  imposition of an entirely one sided ideology on a very large portion of our population by a handful of well-organized people. In the audience there will likely be members of John Keener’s support group and we need to better understand their point of view and perhaps get them to think more critically and respect ours.

This is important to our mission of protecting and improving West Sharp Park.

Please be there.

Mike Bell

Submitted by Jim Wagner

Note photograph. Boy at Pacifica Pier by Bob n' Renee/Flickr on Pinterest

Posted by Kathy Meeh