RESOLUTION TO RETAIN MITIGATION MONEY IN THE BAYVIEW HUNTERS POINT
AND TO OPPOSE BUILDING A LIVING CLASSROOM IN McLAREN PARK

July 20, 2004
Submitted by Francisco Da Costa
Bayview Hunters Point Coordinating Council

WHEREAS, the State awarded San Francisco $13.3 million for mitigation to the people who were adversely affected by years of pollution from power plants in the south eastern part of the City, and WHEREAS, the Department of the Environment was authorized to administer these funds and awarded the non profit group Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ) $900,000 to build a Living Classroom at Heron Head Park in the Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP) to serve as an environmental education center and community meeting space, and WHEREAS, LEJ selected an alternate site to build the Living Classroom located on an open space hilltop in a critical natural area of McLaren Park, thereby taking the mitigation money out of BVHP and away from the intended beneficiaries, and WHEREAS, neighborhood organizations in the Visitation Valley/Portola District do not support moving this money out of BVHP and oppose any building on the open space hilltop in McLaren Park, and THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods (CSFN) will urge LEJ to find an appropriate place in the BVHP for a community-supported project, and will urge the Department of the Environment to support this effort to keep the mitigation money in the BVHP, and will urge the Recreation and Park Department to maintain McLaren Park as open space free from development.

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