By Tim Redmond
Wow, and environmental issue that Ken Garcia can actually get excited about! The Examiner’s house curmudgeon, who loves to beat up on progressives, is outrages that the supervisors might consider putting parking meters in Golden Gate Park:
Our fabled greenbelt is about to become a money belt. Our forested treasure is about to be turned into a treasure chest.
The idea of sacrificing the beauty of Golden Gate Park to feed the fiscal hole created in part by the mayor and the board is ridiculous. Planting metal posts in our parks is a crime against nature.
Um, sorry Ken, but the “fabled greenbelt” is already a bit tainted — by thousands of cars that park along those “forested” streets every day. You want nature in the parks, fine — I’m with you. Close most of the East End to vehicle traffic and get rid of all the parking spaces. But no, Mr. Garcia never wants to mess with cars; he’s the most pro-automobile columnist in town.
He just wants people to be able to park in, and befoul, this urban treasure — for free.
(And by the way — I’m all for charging money for parking in GG Park — but I continue to wonder how long those nice, juicy meters plump with coins will last when it gets dark and hungry, and every creative, folks start thinking about all that spare change.)