2.22.05

Press Release: Park Defenders Present — What's at Stake in Golden Gate Park

Saturday 2/26, 11AM - 1PM. Park Branch Library. 1833 Page Street, SF 94117.

Saturday, 3/5, 11 AM to 1PM. Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church Social Hall.1329 Seventh Avenue, near Irving, SF 94122.

Contact: Save Golden Gate Park! P.O. Box 170051. San Francisco, CA 94117-0051. 415.621.3090. www.sfpix.com/

San Francisco. Save Golden Gate Park! presents a close-up view of our campaign to stop the widening of MLK Drive and eliminate an illegal second entrance to the deYoung Museum garage.

"The Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority and the private Music Concourse Community Partnership (MCCP) have failed to deliver on a single promise they originally sold to voters as Revitalization of the Park," stated Chris Duderstadt of the Alliance for Golden Gate Park.

The Alliance for Golden Gate Park recently filed another suit against the Concourse Authority and the Music Concourse Community Partnership for continuing violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

"The Authority and the Partnership have perpetrated a non-stop 'bait and switch' fraud that spans the past six years since Prop J was approved by the voters," added Janice Rothstein. "The voters have a right to know why The City is handing over Golden Gate Park to a private corporation for the next 35 years!"

After fourteen long months in court, the Concourse Authority and MCCP have yet to achieve a final project approval for their 800-space underground parking garage.

However, they have already destroyed all three historic pedestrian tunnels to begin construction of the underground garage. Now they threaten to begin work on a garage entrance that voters never approved in the first place.

The Concourse Authority and the MCCP are seeking a second, illegal garage entrance INSIDE THE MUSIC CONCOURSE and the widening of MLK Drive (at Lincoln) to four traffic lanes!!

Save Golden Gate Park! is the grass-roots legal defense committee of the Alliance for Golden Gate Park. SGGP! was formed in 2002 to identify and hire an environmental law firm that would prosecute the City under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). We hired Stephan C. Volker and Volker Law Offices of Oakland who filed our CEQA/Prop J suit on December 18, 2003.

We will present what is at stake in the court, what has already been lost, and what you can do to stop an environmental and financial disaster in the making.

TAKE BACK THE PARK! Golden Gate Park belongs to the people!