I Sense the Tide Has Turned

On April 7, the Trust Board held a public meeting. A revised - but the same- plan for the art museum was presented with a lot of spin. The first hour of comments was dominated by well dressed people we had never seen at a previous meeting. I am told that they arrived by bus and were headed to a cocktail party. Hmmm? Then a Cal law school class gave its comments. Very interesting and pointed criticism. The public was well prepared and thoughtful in opposing the "preferred alternative" of an art museum, hotel and movie house located near San Francisco's birthplace.

The knockout punch was delivered April 17 by the National Park Service in a formal report to the federal government's top historical preservation council. This report stated five times in no uncertain terms that the Trust proposals "threaten" the Presidio's national landmark status, which is the highest form of protection an historic site can have. The Trust is bound by law to protect that status. There is very little wiggle room in this report that requires the art museum to be moved to the edge of Crissy Field if it is to be located on Main Post. Stay tuned: will the Trust ignore the report at its peril, try to wiggle around it with halfway changes, or use the considerable political muscle of its board members and Don Fisher to put on the fix in Washington?

The Park Service Report is called a "section 213" report. To see it , go to presidioassociation.org and click on "Issues".

Play Ball! Entering the Eight Inning of the Presidio Game

Today, April Fool's Day, the Trust begins another round of hearings and written comments. Are you tired of the Presidio Trust wasting your time and millions of public dollars on an illegal intrusion into a national park and historic landmark? SAY SO!

It will be a battle royal at the Palace of FIne Arts Theater commencing at 6:30 P.M, TUESDAY, APRIL 7. Come early and sign up to express your mind. Specific comments with examples are the most powerful. Point out specific propaganda that has insulted you or procedures that have confused the public. Say what you value in the national park and why what the Trust proposes is damaging to the values of the park. Wonder aloud why the Trust supported the CAMP proposal with great fanfare and paraded out the Mayor and art museum directors to do so, and only later it said that it had not made up its mind, and that is why we are enduring this tedious environmental review. Do some homework. Look at the Save the Presidio. org and presidioassociation.org websites for more information.

YOUR VOICE ON APRIL 7 COUNTS! BE THERE!

Turn Out to Tell the Tone Deaf Trust Board What You Think about an Art Museum and Hotel Near the Heart of the Presidio's Most Historic Area

The meeting will be on April 7, at 6:30 PM, Palace of FIne Arts Theater. Come prepared with a short comment about what bothers you most. Be specific to say why what the Presidio Trust is planning is wrong or why the enviromental review process has confused you and the public. Has any information been misleading or incomplete? Give an example.

FISHER ART TEMPLE II

Another Glassy White Intrusion into a National Park and a National Historic Landmark District

This is the rendering that the Fisher people leaked to the Chronicle. Can you believe the Trust's lack of sensitivity to the historic site? Law requires that any construction permitted in a National Historic Landmark be "compatible" with the structures on the site. This is compatible? Trust documents imply that the National Park Service approved this contemporary museum. That is not true. The Park Service participated in a workshop to identify characteristics of a design that might be acceptable from an historic preservation point of view. This building is not what the NPS described.

Revised Main Post Plan Is Released

OH, NO! NOT ANOTHER 300 PAGES! The supplement to the supplement to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement was released today (February 27). Is this fun or what?

We have quickly scanned the version posted on the Trust website and have issued a press release available at presidioassociation.org.

In summary, the revision is mostly the same sour wine in new bottles. The Fisher art museum now is partly underground, but still at the objectionable location at the head of the parade ground near the El Presidio, the 1776 birthplace of San Francisco. Oh, yes, that's part of it. The other part is placed across Moraga Street in the area of the old Library and the Child Care Center.

Our main objection echoes over 1,000 of the public comments: a contemporary art museum just does not belong in a national historic landmark or in a national park. The Presidio is both. The final call is based on total intrusion into the historical landmark of changes past. present, and future. When Lucasfilm, the Disney Museum's expected 400,000 visitors a year, the art museum and its 300,000 visitors a year, an 85,000 square foot hotel, "greening" the Main Parade and a hokey walk through time next to the hotel, a multiscreen movie house, Doyle Drive, parking meters, on street parking where there never was any, stop lights soon? etc., are added up to judge if these all together wil impair visitors' ability to experience the history of the Presidio, there can be only one conclusion: all that construction will bury the historical character of the most important historic site on the West Coast forever. With your help, that will not happen.

And where is the Park Service? It bravely objected last April for historic preservation reasons. It has yet to rule out this project for the reasons laid out in the laws that govern ALL national parks. I bet that it will though, when the time comes. That time may be in court.

Stay tuned. No one has read the whole document yet.

New Proposals for Alien Art Museum on Presidio to Be Announced in Late February

Just when we thought that we had gotten rid of pigs wearing lipstick, the Presidio Trust and Donald Fisher will soon introduce another scheme for a contemporary art museum and a big hotel in the center of the Presidio National Historic Site and National Park. Think of a contemporary art museum in Valley Forge. Think of Fisher's modern museum in San Francisco's Alamo Square or its being side-by-side with Mission Dolores. Unbelievable, but that is the mentality that once again wants to build the art museum in the Presidio.

There are National Park rules that are based in law that rule against building "cultural facilities" in National Parks unless the facility is directly related to the resources and values of the park. Somehow to me, a 1776 Spanish Presidio and 230 years as the Presidio's being central to America's growing presence on the Pacific do not have any relationship to contemporary art. The Park Service has not said that it will permit this museum that is so alien to any national park to be built.

The Trust officials and Mr. Fisher never have made the case why this art museum belongs on the Presidio other than Fisher's saying that is where he wants it.

Mr. Fisher, listen to the over 1,000 letters that say we the people do NOT want it there.

Please write, e-mail or phone Nancy Pelosi and the Trust to let them know how you feel. Why does a contemporary art museum belong in the Presidio close to the birthplace of San Francisco, when such an art museum would be permitted anywhere in a national park?