110 results for author: CESP

Land Battle Stirs Richmond

By David Ferry, The Wall Street Journal June 16, 2011 Dan Murray, above, stands in a 55-acre property near Richmond's northern shoreline that he hopes to sell to a developer. RICHMOND - A proposal to preserve a small stretch of shoreline in this East Bay city has divided the community, pitting developers and Richmond's growing Hispanic population against conservationists and the city council. The conflict involves a privately owned parcel of largely vacant marshland on the edge of the working-class city. Earlier this year, a new draft of Richmond's general plan moved to designate the land as open space to protect wildlife and ...

Berkeley Meadow rebooted: The wildest place in town

By Jim Rosenau Thursday April 14, 2011 Wildflowers in the Berkeley Meadow. All photos by Sean Gin In 1961, the Oakland Tribune reported that the city of Berkeley planned to fill another 2,000 acres of shoreline for development, including building an airport. The story prompted Berkeleyans Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick to call a meeting with local conservation groups and found the Save San Francisco Bay Association (now Save The Bay), one of the earliest and most successful regional environmental organizations in the world. (For those of you keeping score on Berkeley innovations should note that this was a year before publica...

EGRET Evicted from Building in Berkeley’s Aquatic Park (News Analysis)

By Joe Eaton, with Charlotte Perry-Houts Berkeley Daily PLanet Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Nothing brightens the holiday season quite like an eviction. This Monday afternoon, Mark Liolios, founder of the Aquatic Park Environmental Greening, Restoration, and Education Team (EGRET), locked up the Cabin, also known as the Model Boat Building, the structure he and his environmental stewardship group have been using as an interpretive center. The Berkeley Parks and Recreation Department had demanded that EGRET and its sponsoring organization Berkeley Partners for Parks accept the city's terms for a lease on the building or vacate it by December ...

Richard Goldman, S.F. philanthropist, dies at 90

By Carolyne Zinko, San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday, November 30, 2010 Richard Goldman, a philanthropist whose annual environmental prize is considered one of the world's top ecological awards, died Monday of natural causes at his home in San Francisco. He was 90. Mr. Goldman and his wife, Rhoda, dispensed hundreds of millions of dollars in support of a variety of charitable causes in the Bay Area and internationally through the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund they started in 1951. In 1989, the couple created the global Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots environmental activists - a green Nobel, in effect. Each year, up to seven ...

Richmond casino deal by environmentalists, tribe

Tribe, developer, environmental groups announce major shoreline deal By Carolyn Jones Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, October 21, 2010 Richmond will get a Bay Trail extension and hundreds of acres of open space as part of a sweeping deal struck Wednesday between environmental groups and a tribe that hopes to build a $1 billion casino resort at Point Molate. The agreement, which stems from a 2008 lawsuit filed by Citizens for East Shore Parks and other environmental groups, calls for at least $43 million in open space acquisitions and sets aside two-thirds - 180 acres - of the resort property as parkland. "This is going to be incredibly ...

Tribe, developer, environmental groups announce major shoreline deal

By John Simerman Contra Costa Times Wednesday October 20, 2010 RICHMOND -- An American Indian tribe and the developer of a planned billion-dollar casino resort at Point Molate have reached a deal with local environmental groups that calls for at least $48 million to buy and protect prime shoreline if a gambling emporium rises. The deal ends years of litigation against a plan to build an Indian casino, along with a hotel, convention center, retail mall and nightclubs, on former Navy land along the Bay near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. And it comes less than two weeks before Richmond voters will weigh in on the casino plan in a nonbin...

Endorsements 2010: Yes on 21; parks need a stable source of funds

Thursday, Sep. 16, 2010 California's 278 state parks are undisputed treasures. Anyone who has soaked in the pools of Grover Hot Springs State Park or camped on the beach of Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park or seen the spring wildflowers at Anzo-Borrego Desert State Park can testify to the splendor of these public lands. On Nov. 2, California voters must be prepared to answer two questions in regard to their state parks: • Is the state providing adequate support for its state parks system? • If not, does Proposition 21 offer a reasonable and fair funding method for maintaining and improving these parks? Clearly, the answer to the ...

North Richmond rezoning could bring development to shoreline open space

September - October, 2010 The North Richmond Shoreline, from the West County Landfill to Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, is a large contiguous block of Bay wetlands and coastal prairie. It deserves to be preserved in unified public ownership, but soon the Richmond City Council may take an action that would greatly perhaps prohibitively raise the costs of acquiring these lands. The East Bay Regional Park District has owned Point Pinole since the 1960s. In 2006 it voted to acquire most of Breuner Marsh through eminent domain, over the fierce opposition of the owners, Don Carr and Bay Area Wetlands LLC, who fought that action and whose ...

Broad Coalition of Supporters Qualify State Parks Initiative for November Ballot

June 10, 2010 Sacramento, CA - California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today qualified the State Parks and Wildlife Conservation Trust Fund Act of 2010, a measure that will provide a stable and adequate funding source to keep state parks open, for the Nov. 2 statewide ballot. With passage of the initiative, not only will state parks have a long-term funding solution, but also important General Fund dollars will be made available for other vital needs. A wide-ranging coalition that includes business, public health, education, labor, entertainment, public safety, Latino, conservation and environmental interests already support the November ...

Open space on Albany Waterfront

By Patricia Jones, Albany Thursday, May 20, 2010 The Albany community has come together for open space and recreation for the Albany Waterfront, envisioning only nominal "green" development for its shoreline. On April 19, the Albany City Council unanimously voted to accept the Voices to Vision Report and to treat it as a living planning document that reflects Albany residents' waterfront vision. Mayor Joanne Wile joined the council in praising the public participants and Fern Tiger & Associates for their hard work and dedication to producing an open, inclusive, comprehensive process and result. Albany began this intensive two-year ...