**Related Invitation: Volunteer at the Native Plant Nursery in Candlestick Park**

Every first Saturday 10am-1pm workparty, 1pm BBQ Potluck

At the Candlestick Community Garden, 1150 Carroll Ave

Not a Sierra Club event, but one organized by Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ), a local group we admire and applaud. LEJ works to cultivate the next generation of community leaders in one of the Bay Area's poorest neighborhoods, empowering at-risk youth through environmental education, mentoring programs, civic activism, and good old-fashioned hard work in Bayview's few remaining green spaces.

Spend a few hours of your Saturday getting your hands dirty as you work side by side with these budding horticulturalists to restore their community one seed at a time. At the end of the project there will be a potluck bbq. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided, but please bring something to share with the group. Dress in layers.

For more info contact Patrick at sloughyouth@lejyouth.org or 415-282-6840

Directions to Candlestick Community Garden 1150 Carroll Ave., Candlestick Point State Recreation Area:
The Candlestick Community Garden adjacent to Ranger office located on the northern section of the undeveloped portion of Candlestick Point State Recreation (CSPRA).  CSPRA is located next to Monster Park (formerly Candlestick Park), home of the San Francisco 49ers:

From Highway 101:Take the Monster Park exit from U.S. 101 in San Francisco. Head east (towards the bay) and the stadium. Drive completely around the stadium and the parks main entrance. You will take your first right turn after you pass the stadium onto Arleus Walker Dr. Take Arleus Walker about 2 blocks till it dead ends and forces you left onto Carroll Ave. Once you turn onto Carroll Ave. You will see a large building on the right about a half block down Carroll with a mural on it. Take a right in to the parking lot of the ranger office and the community garden entrance is located on the backside of the building. We will meet you here.

If lost please call 415-574-5103

From Third St: Take Carroll Ave east off of Third St. The Ranger office is the last building on the left 1150 Carroll Ave. Take a left into the parking lot of the ranger office and the community garden entrance is located on the backside of the building. We will meet you here.

If lost please call 415-574-5103

By Bus:  Take the 29 Muni bus to the end of the east bound line to Gillman Playground. From here walk east towards the stadium and take your first left (about one block) onto Arleus Walker Dr. Take Arleus Walker about 2 blocks till it dead ends and forces you left onto Carroll Ave. Once you turn onto Carroll Ave. You will see a large building on the right about a half block down Carroll Ave. with a mural on it. Take a right in to the parking lot of the ranger office and the community garden entrance is located on the backside of the building. We will meet you here.

If lost please call 415-574-5103

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**SAN FRANCISCO'S NATURAL AREAS PROGRAM UNDER THREAT** (updated 8/1/07)

The Sierra Club Bay Chapter, San Francisco Group is concerned over the Recreation and Parks Department’s (RPD) failure to provide adequate support for its Natural Areas Program (NAP).

Specifically:

• The Club and many other organizations have asked that several of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department’s 15 new gardeners be allocated to the Natural Areas Program (NAP). This program manages about 27% of the City parklands but is currently funded by only 1% of the RPD’s $150 million budget. It has only 6 gardeners, a bare 2% of the RPD’s 299 gardeners. Recent meetings with Denny Kern of RPD have resulted in a clear message from the Department that there will be no new gardeners for the NAP despite our request and the NAP’s needs.

• Funding for the Environmental Impact Report of the NAP Management Plan has been put off for many months, thus delaying the adoption of that document and thus the ability of the NAP to undertake new and needed activities that are tied to the approval of the Management Plan.

• Funding for new acquisitions for the NAP has been, to our understanding, put on hold. There are important land in-holdings in the NAP management areas that need to be acquired before they are otherwise acquired and used for housing or other such development.

• Most outrageous of all is that the NAP is not included in any way in a proposed new bond measure for RPD capital project needs, yet the proposed Management Plan for the NAP includes many capital needs that are in desperate need of funding.

 The NAP is a vital component of Rec & Park activities. The program responds to the direction of the Board of Supervisors and Policy 13 of the General Plan to preserve our City’s native plants and habitats. Public support has been demonstrated by the allocation of funds to the NAP through several bond measures. That public support is further demonstrated by the fact that the NAP generates about 14,000 volunteer hours a year.

A recent Legislative Analyst report commissioned by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd quantifies how the RPD has short-changed and undervalued its own division. This report compared the Natural Areas Program with similar initiatives in other urban areas and found that while the Natural Areas Program's Management Plan is a model the rest of the country is following, the Natural Areas Program itself receives dramatically less support than other RPD programs. To read the Legislative Analyst’s report on the NAP Management Plan, go to: http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=4375

It is simply not acceptable for the Department to fail to give this critical program the support it needs to be successful. Unlike other RPD programs, a failure of implementation can result in permanent losses to the environment. When native species are lost, it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to restore them. Every hour lost in weeding and managing our Natural Areas means a loss of habitat, some of it potentially permanent.

These arguments seem to fall on deaf ears in the Department. As a result, it seems likely that the Club will not be able to support, and may even oppose, the proposed 2007 local bond measure since it will not address the desperate needs of our City’s environment.

Sierra Club urges San Francisco’s Rec & Park Department to take a new look at the issues identified above and take immediate steps to redress the flaws in the Department’s approach to its Natural Areas Program.

Additional Comments on the state of our Natural Areas Program

This astoundingly disproportionate allocation of resources is the work of RPD's upper management -- General Manager Yomi Agunbiade and the Recreation and Parks Commission -- and ultimately Mayor Newsom, at whose pleasure they all serve. It's hard to understand why these officials would jeopardize our public lands this way, particularly since protecting and preserving Significant Natural Resource Areas is hard-wired into the Open Space Element of the City's General Plan. Just as historic buildings are cherished and preserved, the City's remnant habitats are officially supposed to be protected. Yet these same officials commit additional forms of fiscal mismanagement that undercut the Natural Areas Program. They expropriated nearly $20 million from the Open Space Fund to pay for the money-losing Harding Park golf course, along with another multi-million dollar raid from the Open Space Fund for a swimming pool.

The presence of the Natural Areas Program and its volunteers in the Golden Gate Park Oak Woodlands has transformed the area from a vagrant encampment to one where the public feels comfortable walking in the woods.  The same could happen in other "backwoods" portions of our park system, but the Natural Areas Program cannot work miracles if administration starves it of staff. (Ironically, the dept's panic reaction to the Chronicle story on July 24 means Natural Areas gardeners must be diverted from their ongoing work to cut down shrubs and trees to expose encampments.)

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Compromise reached for "Healthy Saturdays" in Golden Gate Park

Through all-night negotiations, champions (including the Sierra Club) and opponents of "Healthy Saturdays" have reached a compromise.

These negotiations, mediated by the mayor's office after his veto last year of a previous Healthy Saturdays bill, have resulted in a winning compromise to open a portion of John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park to pedestrians, bicyclists, and other non-motorized users on Saturdays (as is already the case on Sundays). While the agreement is not everything we wanted, we are proud that we've helped win new car-free, recreational space on an ongoing basis, not just a trial period.

The proposal, which was approved April 15 at the Land Use Committee of the Board of Supervisors, wins new car-free space on Saturdays on JFK Drive between Tea Garden Drive (near Eighth Avenue) westward to Transverse Drive for six months each year (April through September), starting this Memorial Day weekend! The proposal also includes a commitment from the philanthropic community to fund much-needed capital improvements to the long-neglected Middle Drive West.

The legislation, which is expected to sail through the Board of Supervisors, will initially cover car-free space for this year only. The legislation enacting ongoing car-free space needs to jump through a few more legislative hurdles, but we have the mayor's pledge to get it to the Board for approval within a few weeks.

The Sierra Club thanks the mayor's office for negotiating a winning solution, and we send praise and admiration to Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, a champion and leader extraordinaire on this important issue of ensuring public park space for people. We thank especially the over 100 supporters who showed up at the April 9 hearing and the hundreds of others who have been writing letters, flyering in the park, and attending community meetings building support for Healthy Saturdays. We are just a few legislative steps away from getting new car-free space in Golden Gate Park.

WhatYouCanDo

Please take a minute to thank Supervisor McGoldrick for his leadership:
(415)554-7410
Jake.McGoldrick@sfgov.org
fax: (415)554-7415;
- especially if you are a District 1 constituent.

Also write letters to:
San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
fax: (415)543-7708

San Francisco Examiner
450 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
www.examiner.com/Submit_Your_Letter.html

Richmond Review
P.O. Box 590596
San Francisco, CA 94159.

Thank Supervisor McGoldrick for his commitment and achievement on Healthy Saturdays. Without his leadership, we would still be deadlocked on this issue.

Rick Galbreath, San Francisco Group ExComm

(from the May/June 2007 issue of The Yodeler, the newspaper of the Club's SF Bay chapter http://sanfranciscobay.sierraclub.org/yodeler/html/2007/05/conservation2.htm )