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City of Half Moon Bay
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The city council discussed 27 different sites on Wednesday night, all of which are shown of the full-size version of this map. Click to download a pdf of this map. CLICK HERE to download the matrix of park sites which includes the key to the numbers on this map.
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At a meeting called on 24 hours notice Wednesday, the Half Moon Bay City Council majority telegraphed its intention to kill the park site on Pilarcitos Creek that the city bought in October 2004 for a community park. Coastsider had the only camera at this city council meeting, so you can only see the video here.
The meeting was described as a “workshop” to discuss a matrix of park sites, both developed and potential, owned by the city. However, the elephant in the room was the fate of the 21 acres Half Moon Bay purchased from Nurserymen’s Exchange in 2004. At the time current City Council members Marina Fraser and Naomi Patridge spoke out against the plan. (Fraser was on the council in 2004, Patridge was not.) During Wednesday’s meeting, council member McClung made it clear she had misgivings about the site.
Full Disclosure: When Fraser and Patridge came out against the purchase in 2005 with the support of the Review, I editorialized in favor of the purchase. I also wrote a series of articles correcting some of the Review’s coverage of the decisive meeting.
What is bizarre is that in the nearly three years that the city has owned the site, after months of community planning workshops and after a peculiar unitemized estimate from the city’s park consultant, the city has never produced an itemized budget or a plan for developing the parcel. Meanwhile, the site is clearly reverting to a state of nature—which could limit the city’s ability to use or sell it.
And the clock is ticking. The city bought the park site with an interest-free loan from the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST). It was estimated at the meeting that the city had saved $750,000 in interest so far, and POST has indicated its willingness to extend the loan if the city agrees to develop it as a park. The loan expires in October, but POST is asking the city to declare its intentions in June. Nurserymen’s has the $3.1 million, the city has the land, and POST is holding the city’s IOU. So, it’s not clear what “walking away” would mean.
Retreating from the site could cost the city a great deal of money. It is using part of the site as a corporation yard (which it would have to replace), the city could wind up owing interest to POST with nothing to show for it, and the site may not be developable by anyone else.
And there are reasons for the city to use the site for a park. The city could save money now by developing the site in stages, as it grows and its needs become more clear. And there is still no other site for a park within walking distance of downtown, the high school, and the middle school. Everyone at the meeting bemoaned the shortsightedness of a long-ago city council that failed to buy an earlier park site when it became available. Future Half Moon Bay City Councils may regret the loss of this unique site.
Regardless of your feelings about the park, you should watch the discussion of the site, the oral communications from the public, and the city council discussion. There is plenty of good information about the city’s parks in the rest of the video as well. Be sure to download the map and matrix of park sites so you can follow the discussion.
The city council will next take up the parks budget at its meeting on Tuesday, June 5.
NOTE: I’m going to be offline between about noon and midnight. Please post your comments in the meantime, and I will release them from moderation as soon as I can.
Terrace Park, Arnold Way Park, Magnolia Park, Coastside Community Park (Sewer Plant Road), Smith Field [24 min] | Quicktime | Flash |
A few years ago, I spent some time on a friend's 300-acre ranch, five miles outside of Cloverdale, in northern Sonoma County.
Cloverdale is a town of similar size and age as Half Moon Bay; the population is a bit over 10,000, some tracts of homes have been added in recent decades, and pressure exists to increase this, just as it does here.
One major difference exists, though: Cloverdale has parks, ball fields, a first-run four-screen movie theater, and a Boys and Girls Club - all the things that we are told locally that "we cannot afford."
Half Moon Bay was incorporated in 1959. Where is the planning from earlier eras, and where are the parks and ball fields? On election night last November, I had coffee with the publisher of the HMB Review, and when she repeated the oft-told canard that we don't have such things because of "obstructionists", I pointed back to all those decades before the rise of local preservationist and environmentalist movements, and asked why the decades of leadership by Dolores Mullins and then by Naomi Patridge did not produce parks. Heck, if Dolores Mullins had wanted skyscrapers in HMB, from what I hear, we would have skyscrapers here today!
This town cannot depend on the largesse of the school district and the tolerance of private landowners who allow ballfields on their properties temporarily (as is the case with the now-expired leases for Smith Field, whose owner wants to build houses there).
It may take many years to complete, but land must be acquired, funds must be raised and carefully spent, and the errors of the distant past must be repaired.
We should not simply hold a fire-sale of the few properties that the City has acquired so far, which is what I heard being suggested by the three ladies of the current City Council, pocket (or spend) the money, and then start from square one all over again. Good questions and points raised by Messrs. Muller and Grady seemed to be largely glossed over, such as when Mr. Muller raised the issue of the Smith Field lease having expired, or when Mr. Grady called for specific information about the acreage under discussion above.
Hal M. Bogner Half Moon Bay
The current Council majority is thinking narrowly and short-term. Citizens will need to provide strong voices and active participation to correct things.