By Jordan Beane
We’re in the middle of a heated debate about what to do with De Anza Cove. Stakeholders on all sides have their opinions. Those in charge of the project understand the need to be open and honest about their plans.
Under the guiding principles listed on the revitalization website, the City of San Diego states its number one goal is to “engage in a transparent, publicly informed planning process guided by the goals, objectives and recommendations in the Mission Bay Park Master Plan.”
Well, it looks like no one told the city’s Golf Department.
Recently three consecutive email blasts from the Golf Department have been about one thing — Mission Bay Golf Course. With subject lines that include “Show your support for golf in Mission Bay!” and copy that states “It is important that San Diego’s golf community demonstrate there is large and widespread support for the game and for a course to remain in Mission Bay,” the Golf Department clearly has its own thoughts on what to do with De Anza.
But the latest “On the Tee,” the City of San Diego Golf Department’s online newsletter, was the most shocking.
With the subject line “An Open Letter to Fans of Golf in San Diego! Get Involved at De Anza Cove!” the city’s Golf Department published an open letter from Ann Parode Dynes, interim chairperson of the city’s Municipal Golf Committee. The letter is a barrage of falsehoods, exaggerations and fake news. Below are some of the most blatant examples.
Parode Dynes writes that Mission Bay Golf Course “generates $2,000,000 in revenue to the Golf Division,” which sounds great — until you look at the most recent audit of San Diego municipal golf courses, done in 2015. In it you’ll see that while MBGC generated $1,745,935 in revenue, it had operating expenses of $2,515,335 — putting MGBC $769,400 in the red.
In fact, neither Balboa Park Golf Course nor MBGC make money for the city. Their losses are simply covered up by the revenue brought in by high greens fees at Torrey Pines.
Later Parode Dynes goes after wetlands, a key part of the city’s effort to revitalize De Anza Cove for the benefit of the region (emphasis in the below paragraph is mine).
“Worse still, we have been informed that City planners are being lobbied further by environmental interests for more reductions in the golf course in favor of an addition to the wetlands of San Diego County. We do not oppose wetlands generally but unlike MBGC, they are not unique. There are thousands of acres dedicated to this purpose (we counted 18,000 acres of fresh and salt water coastal wetlands from the Tijuana Estuary to the Santa Margarita Estuary north of Oceanside) and the environmental community has already been allocated 170 acres in north Mission Bay compared to MBGC’s mere 40 acres.”
There are some extreme, and inaccurate, insinuations made here.
Contrary to Parode Dynes’ suggestion, wetlands are disappearing. California has lost 90 percent of its wetlands over the past century. Mission Bay has lost 99 percent. Species are dying and going extinct in front of our eyes because of this loss.
And even if rampant extinction doesn’t disturb you, coastal flooding should. We’ve seen national examples just this week of what happens when cities replace wetlands with poorly sited development, and a study released earlier this month found severe, chronic flooding will devastate the California coast as we face rising sea levels.
Just because Imperial Beach or Oceanside has spared their wetlands from this fate, doesn’t mean San Diego can do without their protection
However, the biggest misrepresentation is the last part of the paragraph. In no way, shape or form has the environmental community been allocated 170 acres (which, even if true, would still be less than 5 percent of the historic acreage of a healthy marsh in Mission Bay).
A simple Google search proves that untrue. Article after article states “up to 170 acres” is available for wetlands restoration. Neither of the city’s two current proposals add more than 38 acres of wetlands, which — combined with the current 40 acres — fail to reach the 80-acre wetland area laid out in the Mission Bay Park Plan. Even with 80 acres, that number is already too small to preserve this important part of the Pacific Flyway thanks to sea level rise due to climate change.
That this unsourced “open letter,” with cherry-picked numbers and paragraphs of misinformation, was authorized by a department within the very city government ultimately in charge of making land use decisions for the area and was pushed out via a City of San Diego email address is appalling. It is, to me, a violation of public trust and completely one-sided. I’ve received or seen nothing from the City’s Parks and Recreation Department riling up sand volleyball players or tennis lovers.
Nor have I seen emails from staff at the city’s Multiple Species Conservation Program, who are under legal obligation per the Federal Endangered Species Act, California Endangered Species Act, California Coastal Act and California’s Natural Community Conservation Planning to safeguard the very resources the Golf Department is trying to extinguish. It’s one department with a mission.
I’m deeply disappointed that our city government is so clearly putting its thumb on the scale here, doing so dishonestly and behind closed doors. This so-called “open letter” does not exist outside of the email blast from the Golf Department, as their “On the Tee” newsletters are not archived anywhere on sandiego.gov.
Unless you signed up to receive the Golf Department’s newsletter, you would never have seen these emails. It’s an attempt, from the first organizing email to the most recent open letter, to rile up golfers in San Diego. This is clearly unethical, given that public funds are being used to further the wants of one well-heeled special interest group.
Worse yet, it’s happening in direct opposition to what official organizations in Pacific Beach want.
In January 2017, BeautifulPB sent Mayor Kevin Faulconer a letter requesting that the golf course be eliminated from the De Anza Revitalization Plan. In their July 2017 meeting, the Pacific Beach Planning Group voted 14-1 to recommend a reduction of the course to nine holes and shrink the size of the driving range. And yet the Golf Department is launching a full-throated campaign to ensure that an 18-hole course remains.
As a candidate for City Council in District 2, and Pacific Beach resident, this hits home for me. The decisions we make when it comes to revitalizing De Anza Cove will be with us for generations to come.
We’ve got one opportunity to do it right. Let’s not let the Golf Department tip the scales with misleading information, locking a large part of De Anza into an activity whose future may look very different than its past.
Jordan Beane is a Democratic candidate for San Diego City Council in District 2.
