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East Bay Express says Vote NO on Alameda County Measure A1!

By on October 18, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Oakland Politics

Help Save Knowland Park!

Vote NO on Alameda County Measure A1

www.saveknowland.org
www.noonmeasurea1.com

Measure A1 is an irrevocable 25 year tax that:

Could be used to fund $72 million massive zoo expansion into public park land in Knowland Park (Oakland’s largest wildland park)

  • Would allow taxpayer funds to be used broadly, even to build a 34,000 square foot restaurant, gift shop, visitor center and office complex.
  • Paves over and destroys ecologically rich wildlife and native plant habitat.
  • Displaces a rare plant community used by many species of native wildlife, including threatened Alameda whipsnake.

Gives taxing authority to a private organization with no publicly elected representatives.

  • Allows privately elected Zoo Board to tax residents without being required to follow state public open records laws. A 25-year tax for privately-run operation, with no true public accountability, is unacceptable.

Vote No! – The Zoo already gets public funds from multiple sources – other needs are much higher priority.

  • Zoo currently gets millions of dollars in public funding, including Oakland city funds, hotel taxes, East Bay Regional Park District funds, other bonds, and a multimillion-dollar State Parks grant.
  • Schools, libraries, and other public programs should take priority in tax-based funding.

Measure A1 is Opposed by:

  • East Bay Chapter of the California Native Plant Society
  • Friends of Knowland Park
  • Alameda Creek Alliance
  • California Native Grasslands Association
  • Resource Renewal Institute
  • and many other individuals and organizations that care about protecting our precious parklands.

Click here to read Media Coverage of Measure A1.

The effort to save Knowland Park: www.saveknowland.org
Measure A1 and how you can help: www.noonmeasurea1.com
Full text of Measure A1:  http://www.acgov.org/rov/documents/2012-11-06MeasureA1.pdf

Click here for an Analysis of Measure A1.

Paid for by No on A1 to Save Knowland Park, PAC #1351843. Sponsored by East Bay Chapter, California Native Plant Society

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Support Swells for Saving Park, Voting down Measure A1

By on September 14, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Oakland Politics

Our booth at the Solano Stroll

WOW! The outpouring of encouragement and support this last week has been AMAZING. If you’re following us on Twitter @KnowlandPark, you know we were at the Solano Stroll last Sunday, where literally thousands of people came by the CNPS booth and we talked to SO many people about why Measure A1 is NOT a good idea. People love their parks, and when they saw the gorgeous photos of Knowland Park that we displayed, they “got it” right away. Thanks so much to the volunteers who worked the booth—and got energized and inspired by the positive responses to our message!

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Who Knew? Zoo Board Members Are Knowland Park Supporters!

By on August 6, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Oakland Politics

A warm welcome to our Zoo Board Member supporters! As many of you know, we have had such a flurry of people joining us that we have hardly had time to do more than keep adding the email addresses to our database. But recently, going through the list in preparation for our campaign, we discovered that zoo Board President Steve Kane and Board Member B. Reid Settlemier, among others, had signed up as Friends of Knowland Park supporters! Mr. Settlemier had signed up with an email address that didn’t happen to include his last name, but an automatic vacation message let us know who he was. What a great development! Maybe this indicates a change of heart? Fortunately, there is room for ALL the members of the zoo board and its foundation board to join up—room even for the zoo CEO, Dr. Joel Parrott, to sign on and help save the Park–because we have always run a completely transparent campaign.

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The Knowland Park dumps, and the Alice in Wonderland world of zoo assurances: Where is the ‘stewardship’?

By on July 9, 2012 in Oakland Politics, Personal Journals, Uncategorized

Zoo debris dumped in Knowland Park

During hearings on the zoo’s expansion development project, Friends of Knowland Park and other environmental groups repeatedly raised the issue of lack of proper stewardship of Knowland Park, and lack of city oversight of the zoo’s management of Park resources. Despite the fact that the zoo is paid by the city to be stewards over the entirety of Knowland Park, it has never really even acknowledged the Park as a Park.

In addition to raising the issue of inadequate monitoring and control of invasive plant species in the Park, the Friends submitted color photos and Google Earth images showing multiple dump sites in the Park, including manure dumping near the site identified for the proposed interpretive center building and restaurant. In its response, the zoo denied dumping manure at all and did not even address the manure dumping at the interpretive center site, focusing instead on a composting area near the veterinary hospital site. However, the manure pile at the former site was mysteriously removed sometime during the weeks immediately following this meeting. Continue Reading →

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Bad News for Knowland Park: Judge Grillo Decides Zoo Expansion Plan Is Not a New Project

By on June 20, 2012 in Campaign Updates, Nature & Wildlife, Oakland Politics, Personal Journals, Uncategorized

This heritage Coast Live Oak, Oakland's namesake, will be cut down to make room for the Interpretive Center.

Yesterday Judge Evelio Grillo issued his final ruling in our lawsuit, stating that the Zoo’s current expansion plan into Knowland Park is merely a modification of the 1998 Amended Master Plan project.   Sometimes in the court of law it’s possible  to find that up is down and black is white.  Such is the case here.  Our attorneys – Shute, Mihaly, & Weinberger – argued eloquently that the Zoo’s plan, which adds a veterinary hospital and an aerial gondola, quadruples the size of the Interpretive Center, and includes other major changes that were detailed in our briefs, results in a new project.  In the end, the court disagreed, and the accompanying photos show who loses as a result of the court’s decision.

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