In the beginning I too opposed spend over half a million dollars on the visioning process that, in its infancy, appeared to “vision” the waterfronts private property vis-à-vis Golden Gate Fields. However after hearing the Waterfront Visioning consultant, Fern Tiger, and seeing that she was open to true visioning process that included our entire waterfront, while I still believed we could not afford it I was less apprehensive about the process.

Fern has come up with a unique way to get the community involved with the “voices to vision” newspaper and 20-40 small community meetings so that all that wish to attend may have their voice heard. The meeting process would allow residents, businesses, and other stakeholder groups to attend one meeting out of the 20-40. This is so that meeting cannot be “stacked” with proponents or opponents of one side or the other, a true shared vision.

However this shared vision may already be doomed before it begins. In the most recent Sierra Club Yodeler, Norman La Force, chair of the East Bay Public Lands Committee wrote an article http://sanfranciscobay.sierraclub.org/yodeler/html/2009/05/conservation8.htm questioning the legality of the community meetings and that a member public will only be allowed to attend not all of the meeting he or she wants too.

La Force states I his article “In light of the Brown Act, California’s open-meeting law, the Sierra Club questions whether the city or its consultant can legally bar the public from attending or speaking at more than one meeting. It’s also not clear how the city could enforce this rule. Will the consultant call the police to forcible remove someone from a meeting? Will the police arrest someone who refuses to leave or tries to speak? This rule would limit organizations such as the Sierra Club, Golden Gate Audubon Society, Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP), Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (CAS), and even the group that opposes our vision, the Albany Waterfront Coalition, in mobilizing people to attend these public meetings. This is incompatible with basic democratic processes and may seriously undermine the legitimacy of this process.”

I would encourage Mr. La Force , The Sierra Club, and any other organization that is concerned about the Albany Waterfront to make your voice heard at the meeting of your choice, but if you truly care about the waterfront as you claim to, don’t pervert the process that Albany taxpayers are paying for. Stacking the deck in meetings or legal challenges will only serve to continue to divide a community that is searching for healing in this process.

Golden Gate Fields natural state was wetlands mostly, until filled in. Charlie and Michael noticed what we have known before Caruso attempted to build a mall or Catellus to put housing in the north parking lot: the Albany waterfront would return to its natural state — marshland. Further, absent the periodic attempts by GGF to shore up the area, Albany beach naturally would be spreading sand dunes inland toward the corporate yard.

As for the comment about those parts of Albany already underwater, the mudflats and underwater areas of Albany extending into the Bay pretty much have already been transferred into the East Shore State Park, which in turn has already created shore bird sanctuary there. The ball fields in the old south parking lot at Gilman, the Plateau and the Beach at the end of Buchanan already are in the Park, and the Neck and Bulb are currently scheduled to join the Park as well.

Fleming Point, upon which the GGF club house sits, marks the last remaining natural outcrop on our shore. The Bulb, the Plateau, the Neck were dumping grounds, just as the parking lots sit atop landfill.

On the subject of global warming and rising tides, there are multiple web-sites now available with maps that show the new shoreline moving east at various levels: at seven meters increase in ocean level, Bay waters will lap up to San Pablo Avenue along Buchanan, for example. Does that mean we should close down Ocean View school because in a decade it will be under water IF WE DON’T DO SOMETHING NOW TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING?

Lastly, on the subject of doing nothing, that already has been tried in the past with bad results for our City — unfortunately, the owners of GGF have come up with some really crazy ideas to build out the Albany waterfront. Now they are in bankruptcy, with the land up for sale, and a new owner on the horizon who very well may have another crazy new idea to develop our waterfront. Albany has a civic duty to plan for the waterfront. We should not just sit on our hands and wait for the next new bad idea.

Globally, let’s get on board with President Obama to stop global warming before the Bay reaches up to San Pablo Ave, and locally, let’s participate in the upcoming Voices to Vision process.

That is, the process spends only one-tenth of the money on consultants and it spends nine-tenths on yet another “talk festival.” We don’t need another talk festival: We’ve already had at least three of those.

A rise in sea levels is a very real issue, and it needs to be addressed with scientific rigor. Given the state of the economy, it’s also not clear if the Bay Area would be able to support any additional retail or commercial space, which all factions assume would be required to support any parkland.

So, with a City deficit of $600,000 for the coming year, we are planning on spending $640,000 on a visioning process where there are numerous significant unknowns.

Regarding the issue of rising sea levels, I had always assumed that the parking lot area would need to be raised by a few feet anyway if significant improvements were to be placed there. After all, the lot is already landfill over what was previously a tidal marsh. Since the land is not presently subject to tidal action, permits for such additional fill should not be difficult to obtain. Additional clean engineered fill and topsoil should also make it possible to actually grow trees in this area–something that would not necessarily be feasible now, given the likely subsurface conditions of crushed aggregate rock base under the asphalt…not to mention the probable presence of herbicides.

A few feet of fill may or may not be sufficient to keep the area above high tide 100 years from now, but financial models are typically only for 40 years or so anyway. In the mean time, shouldn’t we (and our children) be able to enjoy the best use of our great waterfront, and rid ourselves of the blight represented by such a huge expanse of asphalt?