October 18, 2000

When were you last in Golden Gate Park?

Jeri Flinn's letter to the editor states Mori's Point might have been sold for something other than a conference center/destination hotel. She's right, of course. My hypothetical millions in taxes and transient occupancy fees for the city in future decades might not have happened. Even if a magnificent hotel-restaurant complex had been built to take advantage of that unique location, it might have failed. In the same way, if the old duck farm on Crespi had been kept as a public marsh and frog pond, a task for which it was eminently suited, it too would have served as open space.

Instead, however, AT&T built a very solid concrete structure, paid taxes on it, then discovered its mistake building in the middle of a swamp, and sold the building to the city for a community center. Pacifica is far, far ahead of the game, though the frogs lost out. However, the Trust for Public Land, by buying Mori's Point, has generated a guaranteed negative cash flow to the city. No income will ever again accrue to our benefit from Mori's Point, nor any jobs. Mori's Point will remain a burden, carried on the backs of Pacifica's taxpayers forever.

If a rich executive had bought the acreage, it would have remained private property. Taxes would have been paid. All Pacificans would have benefited. If this hypothetical executive was generous and public spirited, perhaps you and I would have enjoyed tours of his rose garden. Perhaps not.

Let me agree with Ms. Flinn. There's value in open space. When San Francisco set aside a thousand acres of sand dunes in the 19th century, and it was transformed into Golden Gate Park, it became an asset of immense value to The City. In fact, Golden Gate Park is of far more value to Pacificans than is the thousand acres of Sweeney Ridge. I visit the Academy of Sciences often. Periodically I enjoy the Japanese Tea Garden, where fortune cookies were invented by Mr. Hagiwara. Thousands of people each week, including many Pacificans, play games, ride bikes, take walks, run, drive through, feed ducks and enjoy the trees planted by John McLaren and his loyal gardeners. Far more Pacificans enjoy Golden Gate Park each week than Sweeney Ridge. GGP is accessible. Sweeney is not.

It's also true some folks derive masochistic pleasure from the miserly hoarding of publicly owned open space, just as some derive pleasure from storing books bound in fine leather which they cannot read.

John Palmer wants to accumulate "more open space, not less." Pacifica is already suffering more "benefits" from publicly owned open space than we can afford. Half of Pacifica is not being taxed now, and another fifth of our city is threatened with the same problem. Palmer refers to the possible jobs from a conference center as "wish and whimsy." However, I assure Mr. Palmer local jobs for local people would not be just wish and whimsy if the conference center had come about. Instead, Mori's Point will likely now become as deserted as Sweeney Ridge, another monument to the impractical whims of a few people who don't have a clue to the damage they're doing our city by their policy of unlimited open space no matter what it costs the average citizen.

Some recent Reactor columns may be found at Paul Azevedo's website, http://www.thereactor.net/ Reach him by e-mail at reactor@wenet.net