Corporate Pollution and City Hall Incompetence Have a Baby…
••••••• November 7, 2023 •••••••
And it’s called the Marina Green Renovation project. Let’s recap: the San Francisco Recreation and Parks has been stealthily maneuvering to close the Bay views and access from Marina Green, a jewel of the city, to build a new boat harbor.
Money from a settlement from PG&E to remediate the pollution in the current harbor in Gashouse Cove is being diverted for this sinister RPD purpose: less than 50% of the $190 million settlement would be used to remediate the pollution. Hello?
RPD shows idyllic renderings of Gashouse Cove as a wonderful place to canoe, kayak, or paddleboard to make it look nice. It conveniently forgets that a sewer runoff is pouring toxic waste into the Cove. To top it off, RPD pretends to operate towards more equity and to be mindful of human health. Strangely, how the design came to be is a tightly guarded secret that multiple requests for information have not unveiled.
Money from a settlement from PG&E to remediate the pollution in the current harbor in Gashouse Cove is being diverted for this sinister RPD purpose: less than 50% of the $190 million settlement would be used to remediate the pollution.”
Despite well-documented public outrage, RPD, supported by the Recreation and Parks Commission, has yet to do anything to amend or withdraw its boneheaded plan. Even worse, in a meeting a couple of weeks ago, RPD could not answer questions about the financial soundness of the project and had to defer until they get a report from some consultant at an unspecified date. Despite all this, the Commission approved moving to the next step of the process and stated they would ask questions later.
You must wonder, what is going on? A considerable amount of money managed with little oversight, a project harming the general public and defacing San Francisco, and a less than transparent design process beg the question:
- Either the management is competent, and then we must question the motives.
- Or the management is incompetent, and it should be removed.
Management is not a nameless entity in this case: it is the RPD general manager. This individual reports to San Francisco’s Mayor, London Breed. It is said that San Francisco is a Strong Mayor city, and undoubtedly, London Breed can end this nonsense with a flick of her pen. In doing so, not only would she be strong, she would be right financially, morally, and politically.
Laurent Philonenko Erin Roach & Evelyn Graham live in the Marina.
November 3, 2023
