This map from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency shows the areas in the Sunset and Richmond districts where new oversize-vehicle parking rules are proposed. Source: Office of Supervisor Katy Tang.

By Matthew Snyder

Last fall, in response to complaints from residents, former District 4 supervisor Carmen Chu proposed legislation to allow the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to restrict vehicles larger than 22 feet long or 7 feet high from parking in certain areas of San Francisco between midnight and 6 a.m.

Now the SFMTA is moving forward with the new restrictions, starting this week with a hearing to determine the initial test locations where the rules will be enforced.

The Board of Supervisors passed the oversized-vehicle parking restriction with a 7-4 vote last September. Restrictions were due to begin in March, but homeless advocates, fearing that the law would force vehicle residents onto the streets, persuaded the City to postpone implementation.

“It is not uncommon for people in San Francisco to use their very last resources after losing their job to invest in a large vehicle or camper and move into it,” Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, told The Examiner last September.

City officials said that they planned to offer free vehicle storage (Treasure Island has been proposed as a location) for affected owners who agreed to enter temporary housing and receive City services.

A public hearing will be held on Friday, April 19 to discuss which streets will be affected by a test period of the new oversized-vehicle regulation. Pilot locations proposed for the Sunset District encompass the entirety of Sunset Boulevard, Lower Great Highway and La Playa Street, as well as all of Fulton Street and Lincoln Way.

The SFMTA is working with community members, the Board of Supervisors and the Police Department to select appropriate locations for this pilot program, which is now slated to take effect in May once a final decision is made on the initial test locations.

A possible permit-parking plan had been discussed briefly as a solution, but it was put aside because it would affect beach visitors from outside the neighborhood who park along Lincoln and La Playa before heading to the beach.

Outer Sunset residents have grown frustrated by the illegal parking of oversize vehicles along the Great Highway.

Although the new oversized-vehicle rules would apply to any vehicle, including commercial trucks or vehicles simply stored on the street without anyone living inside, it’s the long-term presence of occupied RVs and campers that has caused the most concern among residents.

Former District 4 supervisor Ed Jew helped pass legislation back in 2007 that prohibited habitation in vehicles along the Great Highway between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. (according to the San Francisco Police Code, as violation carries a $1,000 fine, six months in jail or both). But the initiative quickly proved difficult to enforce.

Since overnight habitation is a misdemeanor offense, police officers must hand out citations personally. This means police must knock on the doors of vehicles suspected of being in violation of the rule during the night, but if an inhabitant does not respond to the knock the officers cannot enter the vehicle without a search warrant.

Concerned residents could dial 311 to report an illegally parked vehicle, but they encountered a convoluted process filled with multiple requests and a lengthy wait for subsequent action.

John Zwolinski moved with his family to the La Playa area 10 years ago, and quickly became involved with the local community.

Pat and Buffy Maguire, longtime Sunset District residents who own the Java Beach coffee houses, were lead organizers for the neighborhood, Zwolinski said. The oversized vehicles quickly became a pressing issue.

“Pat and Buffy, and many other longtime residents we spoke with, explained that RVs and other campers had parked along these corridors since the ’70s or ’80s, and that there had indeed been problems with their encampments over the years,” Zwolinski said.

After Zwolinski’s upstairs neighbor stumbled upon an RV owner “dumping his black-water tank into the storm drain in front of our house” four years ago — Zwolinski said dumping continues to be a problem — Pat Maguire encouraged him to create a neighborhood watch group.

The La Playa Park Neighborhood Watch has since worked on quality-of-life issues in the neighborhood, but Zwolinski said that the oversized vehicles have proven to be a particularly intractable problem.

Residents have cited the proximity of attractive businesses such as a nearby hotel where people can duck out of view and that also provides free wifi, coupled with infrequent street sweeping along the corridor and the lack of marked parking stalls, makes La Playa one of several lengthy Outer Sunset corridors that attract long-term vehicle residence.

Zwolisnki said that Taraval Station police have been very helpful, but attempts to move the oversized vehicles with 72-hour notices or nighttime checks are often fruitless.

“We are allowed to phone the police dispatch center after 10 p.m., and the vehicles are sometimes slapped with 72-hour notices,” said Norm Wheatley, a local resident. “But the vehicles just move away a block or two and return within a day or so.”

In the meantime, Zwolinski said, there’s a feeling of disquietude in the neighborhood because of the seedy actions of some residents of oversized vehicles.

Wheatley, who lives mere steps from the Muni N-Judah turnaround at the end of Judah Street, referenced “numerous instances” of late-night disorderly behavior, and instances of chronic littering and urinating in the street, in addition to the dumping of toilets.

“We’re certainly not saying that all the problems in the neighborhood are attributable to folks living in vehicles,” Zwolinski said. “But we can say, with some sad confidence, that when scores of people we don’t know are encamped long-term in dozens of vehicles yards from our homes, we invariably have problems we tend not to experience during those rare interludes when we’ve managed to encourage them to move along.”

Read the SFMTA hearing notice for Friday’s meeting:

SFMTA oversize vehicle restriction hearing April 19, 2013 by Ocean Beach Bulletin

Read the SFMTA’s overview of the new oversize-vehicle restrictions:

SFMTA oversize vehicle regulation fact sheet by Ocean Beach Bulletin

Read a list of locations where San Francisco’s new oversize-vehicle rules would be posted and enforced:

OV Sign Locations for Pilot by Ocean Beach Bulletin

Photo: Flickr user stevendramon

San Francisco’s Ocean Beach makes up nearly the entire western edge of the city, yet it’s never had a unified vision for its future or a plan to put that vision into action.

That’s changing with the Ocean Beach Master Plan, an ambitious effort to address the questions of what people want out of the massive strand that is both a neighborhood playground and a national park, how the jumble of agencies responsible for the beach can work together, and what to do about increasing erosion and rising sea levels. The plan will be formally presented at an event on the beach planned for April, but on Thursday organizers offered a sneak peek at the result of more than a year of work.

“We’re very excited about the recommendations we put together,” said Benjamin Grant, who has led the Ocean Beach Master Plan initiative for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association think tank.

Those recommendations include a variety of measures to enhance people’s enjoyment of the beach, while protecting it and a massive complex of municipal infrastructure from the ravages of a rising Pacific Ocean:

• Reroute traffic that now travels the Great Highway south of Sloat Boulevard, sending it onto Sloat and around the east side of the San Francisco Zoo.
• Install a multifaceted erosion-control system including sand replenishment, cobblestone berms and hard walls in selected areas, such as in front of the Oceanside water-treatment plant south of the zoo.
• Shift the turnaround point of the L-Taraval Muni line so trains stop on Sloat Boulevard adjacent to the zoo.
• Create walking trails and other connections among southern Ocean Beach, Fort Funston and Lake Merced.
• Reduce some parts of the Great Highway to one lane in each direction, instead of two.
• Install parking and erosion-control measures in areas where the Great Highway is narrowed.
• Replace asphalt parking lots at Ocean Beach near Golden Gate Park with a combination of paving and planting that will enhance the everyday aesthetics of the area while retaining parking capacity for big events.
• Add dedicated bicycle lanes to take riders between Geary Boulevard in the Richmond District and Ocean Beach.

Benjamin Grant. Photo: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin

The master plan anticipates guiding the management of Ocean Beach until about 2050, with a major re-evaluation in 2030.

Grant presented the plan at SPUR headquarters on Mission Street to an audience of several dozen people. He said the Ocean Beach Master Plan isn’t a regulatory document or a law, and acknowledged that it would take decades – and a lot of money – to put each of its ideas into action.

People in the audience seemed generally positive about the plan, but a few of the recommendations did draw some skeptical questions.

According to data SPUR collected earlier about public feedback on its recommendations, the idea of reducing lanes on the Great Highway drew the greatest number of negative comments. That recommendation concerned Great Highway resident Mike Learned, too.

Learned, who said he has lived at Santiago Street and Lower Great Highway for 31 years, said that even today, a sunny day will often bring enough traffic to the beach to clog the street.

The Ocean Beach Master Plan's recommendation to narrow the Great Highway, "Key Move 3," received the greatest amount of negative feedback. Graphic courtesy SPUR.

“On any beautiful Saturday or Sunday of the year, traffic on Great Highway backs up from Sloat Boulevard — sometimes all the way to Noriega,” he said, adding that he sometimes has to close his windows because of the fumes from backed-up cars.

“I think there’s going to be some serious traffic and environmental impact if the capacity to carry traffic is reduced.”

The Great Highway between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard runs past two very different parts of the beach. At about Noriega Street, near-shore currents strike the beach and divide. One current runs north, depositing sand from San Francisco Bay and making the beach wider, while another turns south, scouring sand away from the beach and eroding the berm on which the Great Highway was built. It’s the erosion that prompted the idea to narrow the Great Highway, allowing more room for erosion-control measures on the beach.

SPUR has developed the Ocean Beach Master Plan with months of brainstorming and feedback from nearby residents and beach users, agencies such as the National Park Service and the City of San Francisco, neighborhood groups, advocacy organizations, and Beach Chalet restaurateur and beach activist Lara Truppelli. The master plan has been funded by the California Coastal Conservancy, the City, and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, an arm of the National Park Service.

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Editor’s Note: Tom Prete worked at SPUR from April 2006 to October 2007, managing the think tank’s publications. He did copy-editing work for SPUR on a freelance basis from October 2007 to June 2011. He was never involved in SPUR policy matters.

Increasing ocean acidity can also affect nutrients like nitrogen. Photo: Kimberly Ayers / KQED

By Kimberly Ayers, KQED

The breadth of this study  – 18 research institutions and 21 scientists worldwide — and the examination of hundreds of studies stretching so far back into the geologic record makes this conclusion a singularly solid statement about the present trend.

“From everything we know today, it looks like the current rate of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions” may spell the loss of “organisms we care about — coral reefs, oysters, salmon,” says Bärbel Hönisch, the study’s lead author, who I reached by phone in New York. She’s a paleo-oceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The paper’s being published today in the journal Science.

The danger comes from what happens when CO2 is absorbed by the oceans: CO2 and water create carbonic acid, the stuff that makes soft drinks bubbly. It also makes the oceans more acidic. That acid can dissolve the shells of “keystone” species that are the building blocks for marine life. The world’s oceans are already twice as acidic – a pH drop from 8.2 to 8.1 — as they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution. That’s an acidification rate 10 times faster than anything found in the record over the past 300 million years, according to this new survey.

For her part in the study, USC doctoral candidate Rowan Martindale was looking at the juncture between the Triassic and Jurassic eras, 200 million years ago. It was a cataclysmic time when the earth’s continents were splitting apart, huge strings of volcanoes were erupting, atmospheric CO2 was at one of the highest levels ever and — you guessed it — hardly any evidence of limestone or coral, two things that dissolve in acidic water. It marked one of the five biggest extinction events in the planet’s history. Atmospheric carbon was increasing at the rate of one gigaton – about 2.2 trillion pounds — per year.

Today, atmospheric carbon is increasing at the rate of eight gigatonnes per year — about 17.6 trillion pounds. ‘Something weird was going on in the ocean back then,” Martindale says. “The modern ocean chemistry is changing, and nobody really knows exactly what’s going happen.”

This article is from our news associate KQED.

Hönisch says the team cited hundreds of studies — the journal had to put a limit on their end list of 218 items — and looked at many more over the past year-and-a-half. “The strength is that when we compare these different events [in the geologic record], we can see the similarities. We can also see where we need more information.”

Both Honisch and Martindale will tell you the paleo record has its gaps and intriguing questions for further study — exactly how atmospheric warming interacts with ocean acidity, and key ocean sediments they’d love to sample that have disappeared back below the sea floor, for example — but their conclusion is clear: the world’s oceans are acidifying at a rate that has never been seen before.

“Maybe things are not as bad as we think, but we don’t know, says Hönisch. “[And] by the time we do, it may be too late to turn around.”

***

This article comes to the Ocean Beach Bulletin from our news associate KQED. Read more about our partnership with KQED.

Image: California Coastal Conservancy

UPDATE 8 p.m. Jan. 20: The Coastal Conservancy voted 5-0 to approve SPUR’s Ocean Beach Master Plan funding request, according to conservancy Communications Director Dick Wayman.

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The California Coastal Conservancy could give $400,000 Thursday to help the Ocean Beach Master Plan take the first steps toward concrete action after nearly a year and a half of input, analysis and planning.

“That’s the goal – to try to buld on the momentum we have and ensure this doesn’t end up as some book on a shelf,” said Ben Grant, director of the master-plan effort for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association think tank. SPUR is coordinating the creation of the plan with funding from federal, state and local sources.

The agency will consider the funding request at its meeting Thursday afternoon. If it goes through, the money would help pay for a traffic study on the impacts of closing down part of the Great Highway, plus the creation of agreements by which the various agencies that manage Ocean Beach would cooperate under a single unified vision.

The traffic study is necessary if one of the lynchpins of the master plan is to go forward.

“So many other of the things we’re proposing turn on making that work,” said Grant.

The preliminary Ocean Beach Master Plan calls for closing the Great Highway to private auto traffic south of Sloat Boulevard, rerouting southbound traffic north to Sloat and to Skyline Boulevard east of the San Francisco Zoo, plus narrowing the Great Highway to one lane in each direction. Planners say those changes, in essence, would allow for a better game of defense.

Eliminating two lanes of traffic on the Great Highway between Lincoln and Sloat boulevards and moving the remaining traffic east would provide a buffer — room to install some erosion-control measures gentler and more effective than seawalls, and even to retreat from the edge of the water as the ocean level rises. And the Great Highway extension south of Sloat has been the site of some expensive and controversial protection measures, including the installation of a rock revetment that prompted an ongoing lawsuit against the city. Closing that section of the road would permit authorities to concentrate on protecting the Oceanside Water Treatment Plant, a massive facility much harder and more expensive to relocate than a two-lane surface road.

“We really want to lead with that, get that into environmental review as soon as possible,” Grant said.

The joint management agreements are intended to bring some clarity and goals to the mishmash of agencies that each play some role in the management of Ocean Beach.

“What we’d like to come out is an agreed-upon road map” for managing the beach, said Grant.

The conservancy’s $400,000 would be about half of the funding for conducting the traffic study and creating the joint-management frameworks. According to conservancy documents, additional funding of $125,000 is expected from the National Park Service, which manages the beach itself, plus $300,000 over the next two fiscal years from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The SFPUC owns wastewater infrastructure near Ocean Beach, including the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant south of Sloat Boulevard and a massive wastewater transport system under the Great Highway.

SPUR presented a set of Ocean Beach Master Plan draft recommendations in November, and is scheduled to release a final proposed plan later this month.

The conservancy staff has recommended that its governing board approve SPUR’s funding request, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Golden Gate National Recreation Area General Superintendent Frank Dean sent the conservancy letters of support.

But not everyone is convinced that the changes proposed by SPUR are the right ones.

Dean LaTourrette of Save the Waves, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving coastal environments, said that the big issue should really be relocating the water-treatment infrastructure that lies so close to the sea, particularly south of Sloat Boulevard.

“In general, we do support continuing to fund the process, but we don’t want to see that money go toward studies about engineering solutions and or implementation of engineering solutions that don’t involve strategic relocation of infrastructure,” he said.

California Coastal Conservancy staff report – Jan. 19, 2012 funding request for San Francisco Ocean Beach M…

***

Editor’s Note: Tom Prete worked at SPUR from April 2006 to October 2007, managing the think tank’s publications. He did copy-editing work for SPUR on a freelance basis from October 2007 to June 2011. He was never involved in SPUR policy matters.

A Wastebusters team leads a group of visiting school children in sorting waste from the Rip Curl Pro Search surfing contest at Ocean Beach.

As the circus that was the Rip Curl Pro Search packs its bags, much of the waste has already been recycled, composted, reused and donated thanks to local non-profits Sustainable Surf and Wastebusters.

“We’ve partnered with Rip Curl to help make the Rip Curl Pro Search into the greenest ASP World Tour surfing event ever,” said Sustainable Surf co-founder and Ocean Beach regular Michael Stewart.

For an event that attracted the world’s best surfers to Ocean Beach, and thousands of spectators looking to watch them perform, the event was successful in its goal of becoming one of the greenest of its kind.

The event’s power needs were entirely met by recycled restaurant grease, and more than 90 percent of solid discards were diverted from landfills through reuse, recycling and composting, according to Wastebusters owner-operator Michael Siminitus.

San Francisco Special Events ordinance No. 73-89 says any applicant for a permit to hold a special event, such as a surf contest, must submit a recycling plan beforehand.

The nonprofit organization Sustainable Surf set forth a recycling plan that went above and beyond the City’s minimum requirements.

Three biodiesel-powered generators provided electricity at the Rip Curl Pro Search surfing contest.

One of the most noticeable greening initiatives for such a large event was the use of 100 percent biodiesel generators. According to Michael Stewart, three generators running on B100, biofuel made of converted cooking grease collected by the city program SF Recycle, powered everything from the stage, communications and food vendors.

“This entire event is actually being run off of waste grease from San Francisco’s restaurants. If you’re eating fish and chips, or you’re eating fries, you’re actually helping power this event,” said Stewart. “The carbon footprint reduction, the environmental benefit, the fact that everything is local … that’s what this is all about.”

Reliance on fossil fuels was not the only issue Sustainable Surf looked to eliminate, but production of solid waste tends to be a major issue in dealing with thousands of visitors over a seven-day period.

As a whole, San Francisco diverts 77 percents of its daily waste, but the Rip Curl Pro set the bar high with a goal of 90 percent waste diversion, according to Michael Siminitus.

“In general, the San Francisco crowd is familiar with composting and recycling and sorting their discards appropriately,” said Siminitus. “We have a lot of international people here who at first weren’t getting it. Through outreach efforts … we’re able to educate people from all over the world about San Francisco’s zero-waste event program.”

Compostable waste from the Rip Curl Pro Search surfing contest.

Recycleable waste.

Waste destined for the landfill.

After visitors discarded their “trash” into color coded bins, the Wastebusters team collected, hand-sorted and stored the materials in seperate dumpsters. After sorting, every bin was weighed to keep track of waste diversion percentages.

According to Siminitus, a few hundred pounds of film plastics, or 9 percent of discarded materials, are the only real “waste materials” headed for a landfill. The bulk, by weight, of what the Wastebusters collected were compostable organics including food waste, compostable forks, and paper plates. High volumes of cardboard, beverage containers, and paper were recycled.

“We’ve really made a huge effort to reduce anything being used on site that’s not compostable or recyclable,” said Siminitus. “None of our vendors are using anything that has to go to the landfill… everything’s being composted from food service, except for bottles and cans from beverages.”

Waste materials not to be reused or donated, such as coat hangers, contest banners, and construction materials including scaffolding and lumber, are still destined to serve a purpose. Compostable organics are sent to San Francisco’s organics collection system, to be turned into fertilizer for farms. Recycled materials are collected by Recology to be further sorted, baled, and sold at market according to Siminitus.

The 9 percent of “waste materials” that must be sent to a landfill, such as film plastics, will be sent to Altamont Landfill and stored in a “dry tomb.”

“The highest and best use of materials is what we’re going for here,” said Siminitus.

Sustainable Surf and Wastebusters were not the only nonprofits helping to green up the beach. The Surfrider Foundation, of which Michael Stewart is also the vice chair, held a beach cleanup midway through the contest.

Marcus Combs, volunteer manager at the National Parks Service, praised the work of the San Francisco chapter of the Surfrider Foundation and  local surfers.

“We know what’s going on day-to-day because of them, the Surfriders, they are a good partner in cleaning up the beach,” said Combs. “You have these organizations that are working hand in hand with the National Parks Service to keep the environment clean.”

The effort made by Sustainable Surf, the Surfrider Foundation, and Wastebusters attracted the attention of locals and non-locals alike.

Twenty-year-old Matt Meredith, on a road trip from Missouri, happened upon the Wastebusters tent and was hired to sort trash during the contest. Meredith said he has never seen waste diversion on this scale in his home state.

“We develop a habit of putting it all in a bag and wait for the garbageman to pick it up once a week,” said Meredith. “Together it’s waste, but when you break waste down into what it really is, you can turn it around and make it into a cycle.”

All photos: Jon Weiand / Ocean Beach Bulletin

The Ocean Beach Bulletin spent a large amount of time at the Rip Curl Pro Search surf contest, not only to watch the surfing, but also to speak with many of people involved in the operations of the contest itself. We talked to everyone from cameramen to lifeguards, security guards to trash sorters. In a break from our normal news reporting, we present here an in-depth examination of contest, as told in the words of those who were behind the scenes throughout the event. So make yourself comfortable, and settle down for a long-form retelling of the event, and enjoy Jon Weiand’s photos while you’re at it.

Kelly Slater pulls into a barrel in his heat against Dan Ross. He won the heat, and won the ASP World Title, only to have a calculation error force him into another heat to clinch the title.

Waves and Weather

Kyle Parsons, president of Indosole, a sandal company that refurbishes Balinese motorcycle titles in their sandals

Kyle Parsons with Indosole, down here at Ocean Beach watching the Rip Curl Pro Search. We’re really stoked on this event. We’ve been blessed with great weather and waves, and Kelly’s title, making history here on our beach. It’s been really awesome.

William Hood, Ocean Beach lifeguard for 5 years

They scored. They chose a really good time, and they got about as good of waves as you can get for a contest, and everyone was really respectful. People have been cleaning up after themselves and not being too crazy, but really enjoying themselves.

There weren’t too many challenges. Everyone was incredibly respectful. I thought that was a really nice part of it. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the contest.

Our main issue is to watch the water, and we didn’t see hardly anyone in the water, because it’s been such a good contest with such good waves, swimmers didn’t really go in the water. And even the nearby surfers didn’t really go into the contest area, even though it wasn’t a closed contest area.

Overall, you couldn’t have asked for a more respectful crowd of spectators and surfers.

Joe Turpel, Surf Commentator who worked the live web broadcast for most of the event

It was incredible. I first started hearing about San Francisco as a stop on the tour and I was really excited about it. I’ve been up here a few times and have actually gotten pretty good waves, so I knew there was potential to score, but obviously with a window and waiting period, you never know what you’re going to get.

Next thing you know, we were looking at the charts and seeing swell, and so wondering if the wind was going to cooperate, and I even think this final day was probably the best day of the waiting period. Everything came together and stayed glassy throughout.

There was that little bit of wind that came through that actually worked in favor of Gabriel Medina for his airs, and it went out of Parko’s favor because he was hunting the barrel on rights, sticking to that smooth approach that Park is known for. I think the clash of seeing Medina vs. Parko in the final was epic, and exactly what you want to see these days. It’s the young guard vs. the old guard, and I think it was a success.

Rebecca Wunderlick, 5th grade science and math teacher in Larkspur

We’ve been studying oceanography and the trash gyres, and have studied Annie Leonard’s “Story of Stuff,” and are focused as a class moving toward a sustainable future. Our next unit is actually on weather forecasting and predicting the weather.

I’m a surfer myself. In the past we’ve gone to Mavericks after predicting big swells in the winter, but this contest is closer and has easier access for a student in a wheelchair, and since we just ended the unit on oceanography and are moving into a unit on the weather, it just seemed like good timing.

So it was a perfect sync and got all the parents on board within a 12-hour period, when I heard last night that the final day of the contest would be today, so I got on-call drivers and community support, and we’re getting a behind the scenes view of the sustainable component of the surf contest, and then we’ll go watch the surfers.

Spectators watch the surf in front of one of the three lifeguard trucks that was on patrol during the event.

The Working Life

Security Guard from Contemporary Services Corporation (company policy prohibits employees from giving their names to the press)

The people here have been great. We have 22 on staff when the event runs, and a night patrol when it’s off, so we have been on 24-hour patrol.

And all in all, it’s been an awesome event. Very few problems. No drug or alcohol issues. We did have a bit of graffiti in the first few nights, and have had to chase away some vendors who are handing out unpermitted flyers, because most flyers turn into litter, but otherwise it’s great.

Mark Cunningham, lifeguard and bodysurfer on Oahu’s North Shore

I want to salute the lifeguards who have to keep an eye on this thing. What an incredible stretch of coastline and responsibility to guard this, it has to be one of the most challenging stretches of beach to keep an eye on, and make a rescue to help someone.

Swimming through that shorebreak was brutal on just a so-so day at Ocean Beach, so hats off to all the lifeguards and all the surfers, and I want to thank everyone for such a warm welcome. Everyone was so welcoming and stoking.

Angela Habashy, reporter for the Australian Associated Press

I’m here to cover the Rip Curl Pro Search for the Australian Associated Press, which basically supplies all of Australian media.

Surfing is huge in Australia, but I don’t typically cover it. I typically cover any sport — soccer, tennis, rugby league. I’ve been here about a week, and it’s all gone great. We’ve had great weather, we’ve had a good contest with big crowds and two crownings of the world title, so it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for anyone who was here to witness it.

I love San Francisco and Ocean Beach, and haven’t yet gone to see everything I want to, but if this wraps up today then I’ll have a few days to go out and play, so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing as much as I can. I’ve been to a few bars and have visited Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge, and the rest of it, and I’m absolutely loving the city.

Robert Barcelona, cameraman for the gib camera in the middle of the contest

I got a call from Transition Productions to work the gib at the Rip Cur Pro Search. I don’t do the surf circuit, but I work the gib all the time. I own the gib so I do it all over, and work on a ton of reality shows and local productions.

This is my first surfing contest, and it’s been great. I live in the East Bay, and as they came up they found a guy who owned a gib locally, so I got the call. I’m really surprised at the weather. We had a couple days of rain, but otherwise the weather has been great. We also had really nice tubes. It’s been early mornings and a lot of work, very hands-on all day, but it definitely beats working in an office.

[Show as slideshow]

Marty Magnusen, local surfer who placed 2nd in the Locals Expression Session and an employee of the contest who worked in the main tent, handing out jerseys to the professional surfers as they went to their heats

I got the job I got because I got a call from the local Rip Curl rep, Adam Stone. He recommended that I be the guy, and I think it has to do with the fact that I’ve been living here for 31 years, and never leave, and surf every single day here. It was a complete honor to get work like that.

I didn’t realize how serious these guys are. They take this sport in a very serious way. There’s trainers involved, and stretching, and I’m sitting here thinking, “It’s just surfing.”

You know, I’ve never seen a contest in my life, so it’s all kind of like I was watching it on TV. It was so real in front of my face, but also so surreal. You get to the point where you get so desensitized after seeing all these professional surfers every day,  that you just end up feeling like you’re watching a webcast. It was pretty cool, and it’ll probably settle in a little later.

Buffy Maguire, owner of Java Beach Café, which had a coffee stand in the contest parking lot

It was unusual in the coffee shack because it was a different flow, where we had to set up and break down, but it was so wonderful to hear everybody’s feedback. We saw our local customers and our neighbors, and then we got to meet all sorts of people from all over the world. The coffee cart was like the great equalizer, because everyone needed their coffee, whether they were a pro surfer or a neighbor coming out to watch.

The positive experience of this was getting to be part of something new, and that highlights Ocean Beach in a way that we all know it anyway, but for an international platform. In terms of business, this is the first time we’ve ever done a mobile unit, so there were some lessons we got to learn from it, but it was more about being part of it than it being a lucrative endeavor.

Kyle Parsons, president of Indosole

The contest has been great networking for intra-industry involvement. It’s sort of a who’s-who for the industry, because people from all over the world that are involved in the surf industry are here on the beach, hanging out. So it’s been great exposure for my company, Indosole, in terms of networking, but also introducing the product to people on the beach, doing the grass roots marketing thing.

We participated at the Surfrider party at Mezzanine, the Bali Hifi party on Wednesday, and then we did a fashion show with San Franpsycho on Saturday night at the Surfbreak Rentals party, and I gotta say, I’m exhausted. It’s bittersweet that this is the final day, because on what hand it’s been amazing, but also grueling and exhausting to be out partying every night, and then up early networking.

Waste Busters employee demonstrate trash-sorting.

Sustainability and Natural Impact

Michael Stewart of Sustainable Surf, a company hired by Rip Curl to make the contest as green as possible.

The week has been amazing. It’s been a great learning experience in how to put together an overall strategy to make this a greener, more sustainable event. It’s been a real eye-opener in terms of all the components that you have to manage at the same time. It’s not something you can just do piecemeal, and say, “Oh, I’ll throw up a recycling bin and call it good.” Everything has to be really thought out and thought through, and really working in conjunction with each other. In that regard, it’s been great, and we’re on track with all the goals that we set up. We’re at 90.3 percent waste reduction, so we met that.

For next time, we realized how much of our waste was derived from plastic bags and films surrounding food, so coming up with different ways to do that will be key. Not to say that I think there will be another Rip Curl Pro Search here, but there may be another contest, and we hope for Sustainable Surf in the future to work on surf contests as part of what we do, wherever they actually occur.

Being green and sustainable a lot about having fun as well, and I’ve had a really fun week this week. We had a great time at the Surfrider Party, and had Green Day show up, and have had cool stuff like a bicycle and skateboard valet service provided by the SF Bicycle Coalition. It’s probably the first skateboard valet service that I’ve ever heard of at an event. That’s all part of the comprehensive strategy, and hoping to get people to consider green transportation to help people get out of their cars, in order to come down here to have a good time.

Michael Siminitus, of Waste Busters, an East Bay company hired by Rip Curl to achieve the goal of 90% waste reduction for the contest

I’m the owner and operator of Waste Busters. They’re really making a strong effort to support San Francisco’s zero-waste goal.

We’ve been really impressed. It was a new thing to a lot of people from an international audience to sort out food waste and compostables, and I’ve seen them improve. There’s less contamination in the bins, and people seem happy to have that type of service. People from all over the country are sharing that they seem really impressed with San Francisco’s zero-waste initiative.

During the day, I set out cans on event days, and service bins that fill up with compostables and recycleables, and then sort out every bin by hand to maximize diversion and prevent contamination to compost.

We’ve been getting on Craigslist a lot and donating scrap materials and re-usable items quite a bit. In fact, a lot of the stage structure is going to get donated to some San Francisco nonprofits. We also give tours of our trash-sorting facilities to a lot of different groups.

It’s been a really positive experience, and one of the highest-diversion events that we’ve had. Right now we’re at over 90 percent, which was the goal we set for the event, and once we donate all this lumber from the stage it will end up way over 90 percent. I like counting it out bin by bin, and I’ve been doing daily diversion totals. We dropped below 90 percent for a bit and were at 89.66 percent, but we came back strong

George Durgerian, park ranger for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area

I think it’s gone very well. The Rip Curl folks have adhered to the terms of the permit and have done everything that we asked as far as waste management and cleaning up the beach, and having their security people here to reduce the amount of trouble we might have at night.

They’ve stayed within the footprint that they said they would, and have been responsive to any of the concerns that we’ve had regarding safety issues. They kept their cables covered up, and haven’t had any impact on wildlife. We’ve been really happy with them.

We banned the use of jet skis to give surfers a lift back into the waves, but the jet skis were only going to be used if we reached over 10 feet in wave size. We never got to that size in this contest, so it’s almost a moot point to discuss the issue of the jet skis. I know it was a big time issue in the lead-up to not permit jet skis, but in the end it turned into a moot point anyway.

Even on Sunday, when the weather was noticeably chilly, crowds packed the beach to watch the contest

Local Reaction

Marcus Sanders, editor-in-chief for Surfline.com, official surf forecaster for the contest

It was surprising how well it was received by most people. I think even the crustiest local guys who I thought would maybe be kind of over it are all out there super stoked. Some people weren’t too happy with some of the pro surfers going out to Fort Point, but the contest itself, seeing guys out there — on a day like today, there would normally be a million people out surfing, but instead they’re all watching, which I think is a big success for pro surfing.

This isn’t some stupid California contest, but it’s the best in the world. So you kind of gotta at some point just like it. Since for me, I’ve been kind of involved, since Surfline does the official forecasting for the event, and I’ve been covering it every day, so it’s been a pleasant surprise that people were into it.

William Hood, Ocean Beach lifeguard

There are certainly some older guys who had a little bit of issues of having a huge pro contest coming here, and I think there are still some people who have some feelings about it, but overall it was incredible. I think they did a good job, I really do.

Joe Turpel, Surf Commentator

It was great to have the contest in the city. The one thing I was wondering about was how the locals were going to react, and they were pretty receptive of the whole thing. I hear there were some people who didn’t want us to come here, but every time that we were leaving the beach, everyone was like, “Hey man, you guys got a great day, I hope you all score tomorrow, too.”

Being in the big city shows a different side of surf culture. You don’t always need to be looking for a pair of trunks to go to some tropical island. You can instead come to a place like this and watch the local guys surf, and see how proud they are to surf where they surf and where they come from. It’s a big part of getting that different element.

Marty Magnusen, local surfer, contest employee

Truth is, I think one of the cool things about San Francisco is the reaction to the pros. We grew up with pro skateboarders, and not pro surfers, so even the crowd here is kind of like, “This is new to us.”

This is probably the one place where all these surfers go mostly unrecognized and aren’t that famous. So I think it brings the whole thing to a more intimate level. We’re all just here surfing.

Kelly Slater rides on the shoulders of his friends after surfing a heat officials told him had secured his 11th World Title. The calculations turned out to be wrong, but Slater went on to officially win on another day of the contest.

Kelly Slater

Mark Cunningham, North Shore lifeguard and bodysurfer

Kelly’s win? It was incredible. That was part of the reason for me to be here, we had a feeling that it was going to possibly happen here and I didn’t want to miss it

I felt the vibe and the energy last year when he won Number 10, and I didn’t want to miss that again, and sure enough — and his whole attitude and reaction to the scoring mix-up? What a gentleman, ambassador and champion. I’m honored to call Kelly a friend, not just because he’s a world champion but because he’s such an incredible gentleman

Security Guard from Contemporary Services Corporation

We escorted all of the athletes in and out of the water, and a few get more crowd excitement than others. Obviously Kelly Slater got a lot of crowd, but also guys like Mick Fanning and Owen Wright had a lot of fans as well

Angela Habashy, reporter for the Australian Associated Press

It was kind of crazy to me to talk to some people and to hear that they didn’t know who Kelly Slater is. I can understand not knowing all the guys, but Kelly Slater? Maybe I talked to the wrong locals, but surfing definitely plays a much bigger role in culture in Australia.

Andy Olive (left) and Lance Harriman (right) check back and watch the surf after the Locals Expression Session. Harriman won third in the contest.

Local Contests

Marty Magnusen, local surfer, contest employee

As for the Expression Session, none of us have ever had to surf under pressure before. It’s not that there’s pressure, but you can’t control your heartrate when you’re not used to something with that many people.

We’ve never even experienced anything close to that, or even seen a jersey in my life. You think you could just go out and surf the way you want to, but your wegs are wobbly and seeing people at the beach and hearing the announcement, so the nerves are firing.

It’s almost an accomplishment to get over your own nerves in the first place. But then I actually got a couple waves, and never really rode that board before, so I didn’t really know how it would respond, but it turned out good.

I got a bunch of good waves and got second out of a bunch of guys who are my heroes and are great surfers, so going straight from work where my legs are stiff from sitting in a chair working all day, to then go out and get a few waves in front of everybody, I’ll take it. One of the cooler things I’ve probably done before.

Mark Cunningham, North Shore lifeguard and bodysurfer

I think it’s incredible to have this, and I see it when it comes to Hawaii and was fortunate enough to attend the Rip Curl Pro Search when it was in Puerto Rico last year, and I think it’s incredible. How cool to see the world’s best surfers in your backyard. I love it when it comes to Hawaii.

The bodysurf contest was so fun. I was absolutely blown away by the turnout and the enthusiasm, and the lack of seriousness involved in the whole thing.

I think it captured the essence of bodysurfing perfectly, so I want to thank Danny Hess and all the locals who helped organize the San Francisco Bodysurf Classic. I was honored to be there, winning was total gravy, and I don’t know how great a job the judges did considering that half the contestants were losing their caps, but I was stoked to be there for a great gathering of the tribe in Northern California.

George Durgerian, park ranger for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area

The only issue we had was people got together and had a bodysurfing competition at Lincoln [Way], and the problem we have with that is that Rip Curl has been great at keeping out of the wildlife area, but those guys just came up right in the middle of where the plovers happen to be right now, as they’re on their way up north along the beach.

We believe that there was some disruption there, for sure, and we’re disappointed with that. We all believe that surfing and bodysurfing are very low-impact sports, but even then we try to keep them out of the plover areas. We want them to come back, and we welcome bodysurfing competitions, and we’re happy to have them, but we want to go through the parks service to make sure that they don’t disrupt the wildlife

They did not seek a permit, and we would not have permitted them anyway, because we never issue permits for anything down at that part of the beach.

A local surfer exits the water south of the contest zone in solitude...a far more typical scene at Ocean Beach.

Return to Normalcy

Buffy Maguire, Java Beach Café

It was really wonderful to feel the buzz of Ocean Beach like that. It was an exciting thing to be a part of, and we knew from the beginning that we wanted to be a part of it.

We thought it was exciting, and they pulled it off really well. It was wonderful to see Ocean Beach transform, and it’ll be nice to see it go back as well, but it was a nice festival of sorts. And then we can all appreciate our normal life out here once again.

Marty Magnusen, local surfer, contest employee

I was born and raised here, and I’m 100 percent happy that it came here. I think the older guys who I look up to, and who I was kind of raised by over at Kelly’s Cove, they seem to be pretty stoked too, and happy.

I have no doubt in my mind that in a week or two, once the circus leaves, everything will go back to normal, and we’ll be back to hanging out and doing what we do. And we’ll have these great memories to remind us of this unique experience.

***

And what about you? Did you go down to watch the contest? We’d love to hear comments from our readers about their experiences of the Rip Curl Pro Search, so feel free to share.

The partnership provides KQED, the nation’s most listened-to public radio station, with detailed coverage of this unique part of San Francisco to supplement its broad regional news, and provides greater distribution for the Ocean Beach Bulletin’s stories of life on the city’s western edge.

“We’re pleased to establish this partnership with KQED, one of the best-recognized and most-respected names in Bay Area media,” said Tom Prete, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Ocean Beach Bulletin. “KQED has earned that respect by producing high-quality journalism, a goal for which we also strive on the neighborhood level.

“The Ocean Beach area is often overlooked, but it’s an important and special part of San Francisco, and one that is constantly changing. We hope the Ocean Beach Bulletin’s partnership with KQED will help bring the stories of this special place to a wider audience.”

The Ocean Beach Bulletin joins other local news organizations in partnership with KQED, including Stanford University’s Peninsula Press, San Francisco Public Press, Oakland Local, Berkeleyside and NeighborwebSJ.

“Our initial news associates taught us a lot about how to work collaboratively to improve coverage of the Bay Area,” said Bruce Koon, news director at KQED Public Radio. “We expect those lessons will continue with Ocean Beach Bulletin, which caught our attention because it focuses on a single San Francisco neighborhood. New technologies such as blogs and social media make it possible for neighborhoods to be better informed about local issues but the information is greatly enhanced if journalists are involved, and that’s the case with Ocean Beach Bulletin.”

“When we started the Ocean Beach Bulletin, our main goal was to provide reliable news coverage for our neighborhood, which we hoped would strengthen the ties of community for those who live, work and play out here,” said Ocean Beach Bulletin Associate Editor Mark Lukach. “This partnership with KQED feels very validating, and is a reassurance that even as we grow increasingly global and connected as a society, neighborhood news coverage is still very important.”

Ocean Beach faces challenges including destructive coastal erosion, rising sea levels and a myriad of competing demands as the biggest beach in a densely developed city. In response to these challenges, the draft recommendations of the Ocean Beach Master Plan call for changes such as rerouting part of the Great Highway, reducing the number of lanes on most of that road, and installing cobblestone berms and other features to blunt the erosive impact of waves on the shore.

When it is completed early next year, the Ocean Beach Master Plan will provide a set of principles and concrete suggestions that city, state and federal agencies can use to guide the management of the beach over the next several decades.

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association think tank is facilitating the development of the master plan, in consultation with a group of government and community representatives as well as experts in fields such as coastal engineering. On Saturday, SPUR held the third in a series of public meetings about the Ocean Beach Master Plan and presented its draft recommendations there.

“To date, much of the project has been about research into the very complex nature of the issues and challenges at Ocean Beach,” said Ben Grant, SPUR’s project manager for the Ocean Beach Master Plan. “We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from the public at two previous workshops.”

“What you’ll see today is not set in stone,” Grant told the audience at Saturday’s meeting, saying that he is looking for feedback from the public about whether the draft recommendations are the right ones.

The Ocean Beach Bulletin plans to detail some of the master plan’s major recommendations in coming weeks.

While the plan already represents one of the most extensive analytical efforts directed at Ocean Beach, even when it is completed it won’t be a binding regulatory document. But planners, agencies and individuals that have been involved in its creation say they want it to be a practical guidebook for managing the beach, not just a white paper that is quickly forgotten.

OBMP leaders had first thought to create a plan for the next 50 years, but absorbed a suggestion from the San Francisco chapter of the Surfrider Foundation to make concrete plans for the period up to 2030, then assess the success of their efforts and make adjustments for the following 20 years. Grant said that while the Ocean Beach Master Plan’s ideas might be relevant until about 2050, it is likely that after that point, rising seas and other factors will make it difficult to maintain the beach and nearby infrastructure as we know them today.

Six big suggestions

The preliminary recommendations for the Ocean Beach Master Plan were grouped broadly into six “key moves.”

Planners think about Ocean Beach in three distinct segments, or “reaches,” with different uses and challenges: the heavily eroded South Reach south of Sloat Boulevard, the Middle Reach from Sloat to Lincoln Way, and the busy North Reach from Lincoln Way north. The six “key moves” of the draft recommendations are divided evenly among the three reaches:

Image courtesy SPUR.

South Reach:

• Key Move 1: Reroute Great Highway behind the zoo via Sloat and Skyline
• Key Move 2: Introduce a multipurpose coastal protection/restoration/access system

Middle Reach:

• Key Move 3: Reduce width of Great Highway to provide amenities / managed retreat
• Key Move 4: Middle Reach native dune restoration

North Reach:

• Key Move 5: Better connection between Golden Gate Park and beach
• Key Move 6: Bicycle and pedestrian improvements north of Balboa

Next steps for Ocean Beach Master Plan

A final version of the master plan should be completed in about February 2012, after taking into account feedback about initial recommendations. In the meantime, a full Ocean Beach Master Plan draft should be ready in December and will be presented to the public early next year.

Anyone who wants to make comments or give an opinion about the master plan’s draft recommendations can email oceanbeach@spur.org.

Ocean Beach Master Plan documents

SPUR’s slide presentation from the Oct. 29 Ocean Beach Master Plan meeting is embedded below. To watch videos of the presentation, visit the Ocean Beach Bulletin’s YouTube channel.

Ocean Beach Master Plan Public Workshop 3 Presentation October 29, 2011

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Editor’s Note: Tom Prete worked at SPUR from April 2006 to October 2007, managing the think tank’s publications. He did copy-editing work for SPUR on a freelance basis from October 2007 to June 2011. He was never involved in SPUR policy matters.

The diverse designs ranged from Angry Birds to dinosaurs, but one thing was clear and consistent: One of Ocean Beach’s most popular events was another huge success this year.

“What’s not to like about this event?” asked David McAdams, the chairman of Leap, the organizing non-profit behind the sand castle contest. “It’s a great event for the industry and an incredibly community-building event.”

The “Sand Blast” theme left teams open to widely different interpretations, which Kyle Brunel, a board member for Leap and master of ceremonies for the event, encouraged.

“People are out here working with sand and being creative, and that’s what we like to see,” he said.

While some teams stuck to more traditional concepts such as blasting volcanoes, others  rallied behind childlike, unrestrained creativity at its finest. One team built a planet made of Swiss cheese, which was being sucked into a black hole, and a small cheese rocket was blasting away from the disappearing planet. Another had a rocket-castle hybrid, which had crashed on earth and cracked in half. Spilling out were cute aliens whose smiling faces made it clear that they were — wait for it — having a blast.

[Show as slideshow]

The event is one of the primary fundraisers for Leap, a program that brings artists into classrooms through San Francisco public schools.

“Without this fundraiser, Leap would be in big trouble,” said Julie McDonald, Leap executive  director.

Participating firms raise funds for Leap as a part of their entry into the contest, and spend weeks working with a neighboring school to design a model for the sand castle. The organizers arrive at around 6:30 a.m., and from there, McDonald said, “It’s real chaos from 7 to 10 as everyone checks in, gets their shirts and gets ready to build.”

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the focus is all on the castles. For most of that time, however, the creations are amorphous lumps of sand. It is in the waning minutes of the contest that the designs really come to life.

A panel of judges observes the whole process, looking for the amount of kid participation and overall sense of teamwork in addition to the strength of the design. Grant Washburn, an Ocean Beach resident and renowned big-wave surfer, returned to act as a judge for the second year in a row.

“I had so much fun last year, and I just had to come back again this year,” Washburn explained.

“And this year, I brought my sand castle consultant with me,” he said, pointing to his young daughter.

Tyra Fennell, a first-time judge who works for the San Francisco Arts Commission, commented on how the teams of adults and kids were working together.

“These are huge undertakings, with so many details to figure out. I’m really impressed with what I’m seeing so far,” said Fennell.

The community sand castle is always a favorite. This year, the group of neighborhood sand enthusiasts built a giant sea turtle.

As the judges made their rounds, Fennell joked about one of the toughest parts of the job:

“The hardest thing is to turn down the cupcakes and sand tributes and all the other ways that these teams hope to catch our favor,” she laughed. “But we will not be unjustly swayed.”

It was a lively morning at the beach. The Blue Angels rumbled behind the fog up above, surfers played in the waves, and in the sand at Kelly’s Cove it was a great day to celebrate creativity and sand castles.

All photos: Jon Weiand / Ocean Beach Bulletin

Photo: Flickr user Randy Son of Robert

Advocates of off-leash dog walking are getting ready for a hearing Thursday afternoon about a plan that could completely eliminate a dog play area at Lake Merced, cut other off-leash areas in the city — and help preserve some of the last remnants of San Francisco’s natural landscape.

Sally Stephens of the San Francisco Dog Owners Group has been emailing members asking them to speak out against the city’s Natural Areas Program, telling them in one message that the NAP “wants to restrict where people with dogs can walk with their dogs, claiming impacts from dogs on native plants and wildlife.”

The San Francisco Planning Commission is holding a hearing on a draft environmental-impact report for the Significant Natural Resources Area Management Plan at its regular meeting Thursday at noon. The EIR studied the potential effects of the management plan, which is intended to guide the maintenance of 32 designated natural areas, including Lake Merced, Pine Lake Park and the area sometimes called “Parcel 4” at the west end of Balboa Street in the Richmond District.

The management plan would close the lightly used off-leash area at Lake Merced, a plot of about five acres on a bluff on the lake’s northern shore between about Middlefield Drive and Everglade Drive. An off-leash area in Pine Lake park adjacent to Stern Grove would not be changed under the plan, and there is no off-leash area in Parcel 4.

While Stephens says the Lake Merced area isn’t used much, the management plan calls for eliminating just more than 20 percent of dog play areas citywide. And cuts to dog play areas now contemplated under the SNRAMP may be followed by more, says Stephens, if nature preservationists succeed in removing off-leash access in favor of what she calls “plant museums.”

“The closures of Lake Merced and the reductions [at other parks] are just the begnining,” Stephens said.

When Peter Brastow talks about preserving San Francisco’s remaining natural areas and restoring others, he almost sounds like someone explaining why it’s important to preserve the Golden Gate Bridge or the Statue of Liberty.

“These are the precious remnants of the natural landscape of San Francisco. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever,” said Brastow, who heads Nature in the City, an organization dedicated to preserving San Francisco’s wildlife habitats.

He said that although people don’t always think about the city ‘s natural areas, once they realize how little is left they’re usually sympathetic to the idea of preserving it.

“We have important biodiversity right in our own neighborhood, and it’s just as worth saving as the rainforests in Brazil and Africa,” said Brastow.

Brastow said that the dog play area at Lake Merced — an area often called “the mesa” — is “a relatively rare upland habitat within the Lake Merced environment.”

While Stephens and Brastow might be expected to disagree about the impact of dogs on wildlife and natural areas, they both also acknowledged some agreement with the other’s viewpoint.

Stephens said she understands that there are some small areas that represent relatively undisturbed examples of rare natural habitats: “Those probably should be protected.”

And Brastow said, “We recognize there’s a huge need for off-leash dog walking. … We certainly recognize that for the sake of the impact on natural areas, there should be more [dog play areas].”

But Stephens said the City has effectively stymied the creation of new off-leash areas for years by deciding to delay them until a study of the need could be done  — and then never doing the study. So although the SNRAMP first proposed to replace the mesa off-leash area with a new one elsewhere, now the only choices are to keep it or eliminate iit.

The Planning Commission meeting starts at noon in Room 400 at City Hall. The EIR hearing is Item 13 on the commission agenda. San Francisco Planning Commission meetings usually are carried on Comcast Cable Channel 78 and webcast through SFGTV.

The Planning Commission will accept comments on the SNRAMP environmental report until Oct. 17.