Paul Kozakiewicz: Mayor, Supervisors Make Right Decision

Kudos to the mayor and four members of the SF Board of Supervisors for looking out for the best interests of Richmond and Sunset district residents.

The mayor vetoed legislation that was passed by the board that would have closed the eastern end of Golden Gate Park to vehicular traffic on Saturdays. The supervisors failed to override the veto at its May 23 meeting when supervisors Fiona Ma, Bevan Dufty, Sean Elsburnd and Michela Alioto-Pier sided with local residents.

The road closure plan, led by the usual group of uber-liberal activists and Green Party members, would have created a great hardship for people living near the park. It would have snarled traffic on the districts' streets and worsened an already-difficult drive from the Richmond District to the Sunset District.

Having lived at Fifth Avenue and Cabrillo Street for 15 years, I can attest to the hardships the closures would have on local residents. (My family recently moved to the Sunset District.) On Sundays, when the east end of the park is closed to commuters, people living near the park do not drive unless they have to and do not have parties or invite people over because there is no parking for blocks. I often parked two or three blocks away after dropping off my wife and two small children at the house.

As Inner Richmond residents, my family and I lived with the hardships and considered it part of living in the City. But to extend that hardship to Saturdays, when traffic is much worse because people have to run errands, is crazy.

In the Richmond, we can blame Supervisor Jake McGoldrick for this misguided attempt. Despite the fact that the voters twice rejected Saturday closures, he sponsored the plan, saying the expensive, privately-operated garage under the park's cultural institutions had changed the facts on the ground. The only thing the garage did was move underground some of the parking spaces on the surface roads of the park.

The museum's volunteers, staff, docents and customers can still park on some surface roads near the cultural institutions. If the park is closed Saturdays, these people will be cruising the Richmond and Sunset districts looking for a space. To think otherwise is just plain foolish.

When he was running for re-election, McGoldrick said the will of the voters was supreme, and he rejected the notion of Saturday closures. The facts on the ground haven't changed, but the supervisor's position has.

It's a good thing that four supervisors, Ma, Dufty, Elsburnd and Alioto-Pier, are looking out for the best interests of all the people of the City, and not just their special interest groups. Their four votes kept the mayor's veto from being overridden.

Some of those who voted for the closure plan did so for different reasons. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose District 5 turf includes the Inner Sunset, said he voted for the closures as a way to force people into the park's underground garage so that it could make more money to pay off the garage's debt and to help prevent what he sees as a potential financial "boondoggle."

He, like McGoldrick, framed the issue as being all about the park's cultural institutions - not about the area's residents and the thousands of people who have to commute through the western half of San Francisco. United States Highway 1, known as Park Presidio Boulevard in the Richmond and 19th Avenue in the Sunset, often becomes gridlocked in the park. The Saturday closures would no-doubt exacerbate the situation.

When I talked to Mirkarimi, he did express some concern over the fate of Richmond residents living near the park. He said he would push for a study of the area from the SF Parking and Traffic Department, because there has never been one undertaken.

But, if we don't know the current parking and traffic impacts, how can we judge how much has changed as a result of the Saturday closures: Don't we need "baseline" information to make a reasoned decision?

Mirkarimi also suggested that neighborhoods near the park could become residential parking areas, where residents would get stickers to park long-term on the street. Other than making people fill out forms and pay for the right to park near their homes, the stickers would have little effect on people using the park for short periods of time. It would, however, create another revenue stream for the City when parking control officers start citing family and friends who overstay their city-mandated time allocation.

The whole Saturday park road closure plan was poorly conceived. Using the mantra "healthy Saturdays" as a slogan, the measure had nothing to do with health. There is already an abundance of parks where people can play and get exercise and closing other streets in the park would be less disruptive.

I don't know why McGoldrick and his supporters won't consider closing an area in the western end of Golden Gate Park on Saturdays. They say it is too confusing for the public and that there aren't as many amenities in the west end. That's a poor argument, especially when you're fighting for more paved space and a car-free environment. The weather is the same, and there are restrooms in the western end of the park.

As well, the Academy of Sciences, with its planetarium, aquarium and natural history museum, isn't even open yet, and won't be for several years. How can you have a six-month trial, which was intended to become permanent before the trial even ended, long before all of the major cultural institutions in the park are open?

McGoldrick and his supporters jammed this plan down local residents' throats and didn't even give them a fair hearing at the only public hearing that was held. During the supervisor's committee hearing, supporters of the road closures cheered every time one of their supporters spoke and jeered, or publicly criticized, members of the museum and public who dared have a different opinion.

McGoldrick allowed the four-hour hearing to be on scale with a high school pep rally and never reprimanded his supporters, who personally attacked individual members of the city's cultural institutions and public.

He also attacked, like a prosecutor, a member of the SF Recreation and Park Department who showed up to testify on behalf of the department. The department's position was to close roads in the less-traveled western end of the park instead of in the eastern end.

I've been going to these hearings, in all types of city departments, for 18 years, and I was disgusted at the lack of civility that was exhibited by members of my city government. Civic debate with McGoldrick at the helm is more like a carnival, where participants let their immature frustrations out on those who dare disagree with them. You could definitely tell who the adults at the meeting were.

Supporters of Saturday road closures should take their proposal back to the voters of San Francisco. They, in their wisdom, will decide whether or not the plan is a good one. If proponents of Saturday closures are smart, they will propose closing roads in the western end of the park.

Closing some roads in the west end of the park would spare inner Richmond and Sunset district residents from a degradation in their quality of life, would lessen the severe traffic impacts that are likely to occur on the few roads that cross the park, and would keep the park's cultural institutions from being negatively impacted.

In McGoldrick's zeal to attack the city's cultural institutions, he lost sight of those who elected him - his constituents, who clearly do not want the park closed on Saturdays. As the representative for the Richmond District, McGoldrick should represent those who elected him, and not pander to the narrow self-interests of a small group of people who don't care about the concerns of Richmond residents.

Paul Kozakiewicz is the publisher of the Richmond Review and Sunset Beacon newspapers.