One day I took a trip in my car
And went straight down Golden State
And went to the beach
But when I got there I just want to cry
Cuz there were so many people
I didn’t know what to do
Cuz every time I go there
My board gets covered with oil
Every time I go there
Some hodad steals my wax
And when I get on top of those
The guy he cuts me off
Why do they cut me off
There’s stupid idiots in the water
They keep cut me off
There’s too many surfers
I wanna kill myself
You know…

I hate surfing at OB
Hate surfing at OB
Hate surfing at OB

The chicks are jerks
The guys think their so cool
They just look at each other
And always try and steal the surf
But not on my wave this time buddy
I’m gonna push you down
I’m gonna take the wave
That wave is, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine
You’re not gonna take it from me
Cuz I’ve got it
I’m getting in there
I’m in the tube, boy I’m really getting off
I’m getting off
I’m surfing this is fucking cool

I hate surfing in OB
Hate surfing in OB
Hate surfing if the waves are always shitty

Ohh… well we can always go to the beach party and find girls

Hey… Isn’t, isn’t that Bad Vibe floating in the shore break.

Hereʻs what you people should do: Carve out a river and let the water from Lake Merced drain out to Ocean Beach.

I was at the Board of Supervisor’s meeting and attended the town meeting at the Beach Chalet and I am not that encouraged about how this is all going to play out.

Politically I believe that the “emergency” is going to trump a lot of good arguments that might be made about the rock revetment. The supervisors & city are going to need the matching funds from the declaration of emergency and that sets a timeline that will with (artificial?) urgency overwhelm many good and reasonable ideas. Having been involved in federal & local politics in the past I can see the witches brew well mixed to build the 900′ of rock revetment over the objections of many of us…

I believe that “the process” leading to the revetment is well ahead of our organizing efforts at this time.
I believe that we are following a common pattern in these matters
- Emergency develops due to lack of long term leadership
- Emergency response is fast tracked
- Community Resistance (usually with long term interests) manifests
- Political leaders engage community (usually by listening & asking “though” questions of “staff”) with earnestness (note Supervisor Chu…)
- Emergency response moves forward with the political lament that if only we’d “__________.”
(usually an appeal for greater leadership in the past & promises (empty) to do more in future)
(Note that Supervisor Elsbernd adopted this approach in his engagement with Mirkarimi)
- Bad short term emergency fix is done
(many political tears shed along with claims of “we listened but….)
- Long term issues & concerns are again placed on the back burner…
(politically appointed staff (Reiskin?) & politicians have short planning horizons)
- repeat (a lot…)

So I am concerned that we are being played by political leaders on this…

I suspect, in the end, Supervisor Mirkarimi will either vote in favor of the revetment (with a lot of deep sighs and protestations) or recuse himself citing his membership on the Coastal Commission… But even if he votes not to build the revetment (highly doubtful) he will do so knowing that the board is going to go ahead anyway. (Note: Supervisor Daly said he thought the votes were there to go forward at the meeting that night and I’d trust his vote counting)

I want to suggest the following strategy:

~ Agree to a rock revetment for only the most critical 200′ – 300′ feet of bluff to protect the emergency area (smaller is better of course).
1. Agree that this will not last as long or work as well as 900′ BUT that it will get us through the emergency
2. Because the smaller revetment is highly problematic & doomed to failure (only faster than the larger 900′) this keeps the fire on all the stakeholders to come up with a long term solution rather than a medium term “kick the can down the road” solution.
3. Claim the high ground
- This protects critical infrastructure
- This addresses the “emergency”
- This is not DPW’s solution but it addresses their concerns in the short term (El Nino)
- This forces the stakeholders to stay engaged and work for a long term solution (right now!)
- This is leadership by citizens asking for Supervisor support (which they all claim to want)
- This gives something and asks for something so we are not “winning” and DPW is not losing
4. Engage in the politics of Supervisor (insert name) does not lead, plan for the long term, and avoids the hard choices (add more as you like) the results of which we see in high cost bandaid failures… (this is the stick)

All the best,
Rev.MCC