S.F. seeks Navy's help in effort to keep 49ers

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 3/8/7 | Robert Selna

[SmithL]

I have a hard time understanding why any business stays in San Francisco.

[dsc]

Oh, *now* you want help?

Kiss my ditty bag.

[Dinsdale]

I don't think they're in SF proper now.

Don't they play in South San Fransisco? That's a separate city IIRC.

[SmithL]

I'm not sure where the city lines are, but the 49er now play at Monster Park (formerly Candlestick) just south of Hunters Point. Both sites are on the map in the original post.

[atomic conspiracy]

About $50 per square foot.

[R. Scott]

San Francisco has declared itself to be a “military free zone”.
I think the US Navy should sell the land to San Francisco at fair market value and get the heck out.

[Uncle Hal]

They play in the city of SF.

[snippy_about_it]

How about the 49er's pay for it. Geez.

[carolinalivin]

Shall we bid $850,000,000?

[ReignOfError]

Okay, lemme get this straight. Close a naval facility so it can be converted into a professional sports arena.

It's closing, regardless of what's to be done with the land. The problem is that the military is exempt from most environmental legislation, so the land has to be cleaned up before anyone else can occupy it.

When a military base closes, jobs leave with it. City officials want to open the land to new businesses that will create jobs. They have an agonizing wait while the military cleans up the site, an under-budgeted process that starts out as a five year plan and usually takes at least ten. I've talked to folks in Long Beach and Vallejo about their frustrations with that process (the Long Beach and Mare Island shipyards, respectively).

The request to the Navy is not unreasonable, and since San Francisco's own congresscritter is the Speaker of the House, the city might have the political juice to pull it off. Now, the reasonableness or wisdom of building a gazillion-dollar new stadium with taxpayer funds, that's a whole 'nother question.

As an Atlantan, this sort of debate just makes me want to kiss Billy Payne and Arthur Blank on the face.

[Political Junkie Too]

And I bet the SF Mayor doesn't see the hypocrisy in all of this.

He's probably running around yelling "who do I have to sleep with to get anything done around here?!?"

-PJ

[Political Junkie Too]

Google Maps picture of USS Jeremiah O'Brien and USS Pampanito.

-PJ

[ReignOfError]

Let me see if I've got this straight... San Francisco/Newsom have a public employee whose job it is to aquire military bases in the city/county of San Francisco. Probably pay him $100,000 plus per year to write these memos.

That wouldn't be out of line. In my post #71 I get a little into the challenges involved and the importance to the city -- we're talking tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate and thousands of jobs. Just dealing with the Presidio alone is a full-time job for at least five years. And the Pentagon is a unique beast, so a specialist would do the job better than a generic urban planner.

[RedEyeJack]

There was a thread here several months ago that indicated that Pelosi's husband is a major stake holder in the financial arrangements that will transfer Hunter's Point to be developed for a Stadium. That discussion made it look like the fix was already in on this deal and the Pelosi's will "quietly" be the big winners. Anyone else have a recollection of the story?

[Fierce Allegiance]

LMAO! SF Hates the navy, now they want help?

[bannie]

Hey...we're the government; and I don't want to give our valuable things away when our debt is already so damend huge!!!!!!

[bannie]

dame-nd
dam-end
da-mend

take your pick.

:-D

[FDNYRHEROES]

Why should the Navy do ANYTHING for a city in which hatred of all things military runs rampant?

But. it's for the children...

[Michael.SF.]

Thanks. For years the Jeremiah O'Brian was kept at the pier near Red's Java hut, just south of the Bay Bridge. I knew they moved it but did not know where.