Outreach: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

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Comments

[Lois Rogan]

"Example: Golf courses are a huge waste of precious water, not to mention space. The Sharp Park Golf Course should be a wetland park, not some water-sucking lawn for the very few who do golf there.
The same goes for the quarry. The flat area is a wetland (when we get normal rainfall years) and it is extremely important wildlife habitat and should be preserved. Even the remote possibility that some developer wants to build in there is just backward. The fact is the whole coast should not be built on; it is too sandy and the rock is not solid—it has a lot of clay."

Translation: People should not golf. People should not own property on the Coast even if they have paid for it. Animals are more important than anything else in the world. People who live in Vallemar should have a big open space to sit, and meditate on how bad the rest of the world is even if it means taking over someone else's property. Whatever the author of that tidbit says should be law and the rest of us should just shut up and like it.

[Butch Larroche]

How is turning the golf course into a non-revenue-generating park good for Pacifica business?

"The Sharp Park Golf Course should be a wetland park, not some water-sucking lawn for the very few who do golf there."

Eileen, what do you know about golf? The Sharp Park Golf Course is home to the Sharp Park Golf Club, which currently has over 400 members. Now I know that you probably think that all 400 are rich white men. Not the case. I invite you to visit Sharp Park on any Saturday or Sunday morning and see the racial and gender diversity that plays there regularly. Not to mention that Sharp Park is home to the Riordan, SI, and Terra Nova Golf teams. Many of the 400 members we have are local Pacificans who love to golf and want personal choice in our recreation decisions. The Sharp Park Golf Course offers us great rates to play golf. Generally $20.00-$40.00 for each round.

Sharp Park, though San Francisco-owned, is mainly staffed by local Pacificans. The job that the entire staff does for local charities is unmatched. Many benefit golf tournaments are held there, and the staff donates gift certificates to local schools and clubs for raffle prizes.

Sharp Park is not watered nearly like a normal golf course is. Sharp Park is considered a links-style course, thus watering is kept to minimum. This is the charm and challenge of playing a links course. Not always are links courses well taken care of. That is why they do not get watered often.

Most golf courses and golfers take better care of the surrounding natural areas better than hikers and parkgoers ever will. When we had the red-legged frog issue last year, our golfers respected the area and did not bother the area. Did you know that many golf courses are nationally recognized by the Audubon Society, such as the course at Crystal Springs?

When it comes to nature and golf courses, not all of them are what you make them out to be, as "some water-sucking lawn." It sounds to me as if you would be happy if there were no houses in Pacifica at all. Well, you can't put the genie back in the bottle, can you?

[mike bell]

Yes, Eileen, please run for Council. You'll fit right in.

[Lance Fernork]

Someone translate the Eileenese for me, please.

[Steve Sinai]

Why is the phrase "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" popping into my mind?

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

[Scotty]

Eileen, you should run for our city council.

[Summer Rhodes]

Here's a direct link to what you can do about Sharp Park:
http://www.restoresharppark.org/

It's an amazing economic opportunity with a win:win for business and wildlife.

[eileen carey]

I wish people would get it about our future on this beautiful and rare planet. We need to rethink how we do everything. Example: Golf courses are a huge waste of precious water, not to mention space. The Sharp Park Golf Course should be a wetland park, not some water-sucking lawn for the very few who do golf there.
The same goes for the quarry. The flat area is a wetland (when we get normal rainfall years) and it is extremely important wildlife habitat and should be preserved. Even the remote possibility that some developer wants to build in there is just backward. The fact is the whole coast should not be built on; it is too sandy and the rock is not solid—it has a lot of clay. This is the problem: People build on sand and then they scream for someone (like other taxpayers) to fix their houses when they start to go into the ocean. Can we just use common sense now that we know? Just don't put houses in places they do not belong in the first place. The quarry cliffs should never be taken down for a development; if we do, we leave just more opportunity for a tsunami or other waters rising to come inland. We really need to use more common sense. Let's turn the whole area from the golf course to Rockaway into a park or nature preserve. This would encourage more people to visit Pacifica for the beauty, instead of making Pacifica into some crowded mudslide suburb of San Francisco.
Too much development destroys property value.
Can you imagine if the quarry was developed with this housing crisis? It would probably just be a big mess! And somehow, we the taxpayers would be stuck cleaning it up as we typically have to do. We need to save wildlife habitat; it is the direct link to humans living better. When it goes, so will we.
Eileen Carey