There is a direct link between the unilateral commercialization movement by the Rec and Park Department and the Beach Chalet soccer fields project. At night, the Beach Chalet fields will be rented out for fees to adult soccer leagues, many of them from out of town. The Recreation and Park Department has hired a great many 6-figure upper management staff over the last few years, but somehow never replaced the gardener for the Beach Chalet who retired.

The proposed Beach Chalet athletic fields project will rip out over 7 acres of meadow and topsoil and replace them with artificial turf -- a gravel base, plastic carpet, and ground-up tire waste or other artificial products. This is an area larger than Candlestick Park!

It will also install 10 banks of 60 foots lights -- 150,000 watts of light that will stay on from sunset to 10:00 p.m. every night of the year. The lights will shine over the low trees at the Great Highway at Ocean Beach. To get an idea of what the lights will look like, go to 40th Avenue and Wawona any evening after dark. The lights are visible all the way down to La Playa.

Over 55 trees will be cut down - a loss to the Park's all-important windbreak. The current parking lot will be expanded, despite San Francisco being a transit-first city. Add to this new bleacher seating for over 1,000 people and more lighting for new concrete paths.

This development project will have a major, negative impact on the wildlife habitat and the naturalistic and historic character of the western end of Golden Gate Park. The Golden Gate Audubon Society described this project as the environmental equivalent of installing a 7-acre asphalt parking lot in Golden Gate Park.

In our outreach, we talk to people all over San Francisco. This area is appreciated and used by the neighbors and by visitors to the Park as the park was intended, as naturalistic parkland. Before the fields were fenced in 1998 (without public input or choice), many people used the fields for picnicing, hiking and kite flying; there was even a concert there to celebrate the 60's! Today, many people hike the trail between the newly restored Murphy Windmill and the Beach Chalet, and enjoy the birds and other wildlife in the area. The western end of Golden Gate Park was designed to be left this way -- we recommend going on-line and reading the eloquent Golden Gate Park Master Plan to understand the overall plan for the Park and why the western edge is so important.

We support youth soccer, but this is the wrong place for this project. We hope that everyone will support the Compromise Alternative -- renovate the Beach Chalet fields with natural grass, good drainage, gopher controls, and state of the art irrigation and NO night lights. Use the rest of the $10million in funding for other playing fields in San Francisco -- thereby giving kids more places to play.

Come to our website to learn more! sfoceanedge.org