Who's Behind It: Prop. H: A coalition of park preservationists, including members of the Sierra Club and the Coalition to Protect Golden Gate Park. Prop. I: A gaggle of supervisors convened at the mayor's behest to put Prop. I on the ballot in order to override H. If both measures pass, some or all of the measure with fewer votes won't go into effect.
Who Stands to Benefit: If H passes, its backers get to keep their "natural" vision of the city. If I passes, it will allow the city to finally carry out a $16 million soccer field renovation that could recoup money for its Recreation & Park Department, in the form of field rental fees.
The soul of San Francisco is reflected in its soccer fields. Or so one would think from the debates over two ballot measures. Prop. H would nix the planned astroturf and artificial lighting installation slated for Beach Chalet Athletic Fields, along with any similar restoration of the Polo Fields. Prop. I would effectively negate H. If both measures go down in flames, the Beach Chalet field renovation will proceed as planned.
The main Prop. H backers are preservationists of one sort or another, who all insist on keeping the park in its unadulterated, grassy state. Though the fields in question are poorly maintained and pockmarked with gopher holes, Prop. H supporters prefer that to the city's planned renovation, which would include bleachers, a children's playground, 60-foot light towers, and what members of the Sierra Club have taken to calling "toxic turf" — the rubber-crumb substance that blankets soccer pitches throughout the city.
Last week, the grass-huggers found an unexpected ally in the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club, which redoubled its fight against park privatization after video surfaced of Dropbox and Airbnb employees displacing pickup soccer players in the Mission. The now-ubiquitous "Mission Playground Is Not for Sale" video generated so much vitriol that San Francisco's Recreation & Park Department scrapped its permitting system for Mission Playground; the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club, in turn, took a public stance against the rehab effort at Beach Chalet.
That pits the Latino Democratic Club against a vast swath of soccer lovers, who, ironically, have an accessibility argument of their own. Newly renovated athletic fields would allow 1,000 more kids to play soccer and other sports, a veritable windfall in an area with constricted supply and voracious demand, the San Francisco Youth Soccer League notes in its rebuttal to H. The city currently harbors 13,000 youth soccer players, many of whom get turned away each year because there's no place to put them — and because grass fields shut down when it rains. Soccer enthusiasts have joined with Rec & Park, Mayor Ed Lee, and a campaign committee called "Let SF Kids Play" to back Prop. I, which has about three times as much funding as H. (H is bolstered by a loose coalition of retirees and neighborhood groups; major I funders include PG&E and the three grown sons of Gap founder and Republican billionaire Donald Fisher). Yes, you did see an airplane commissioned by the San Francisco Glens Soccer Club buzz a Giants playoff game with a "Yes on I" banner.
In many ways, this soccer field spat is part of an ongoing culture war regarding what kind of vision the city has for itself. The city does indeed stand to profit from renting the fields at Beach Chalet. The pristine, 7-acre field it envisions isn't the kind that neighborhood kids could freely use for a pickup game; moreover, the Fishers' City Fields Foundation, which partnered with Rec & Park to spearhead the renovation effort, is known for championing a privatized worldview.
That said, Beach Chalet's "natural" fields aren't of much use to anyone. Rec & Park says they're among the worst in the city, and because of drainage problems, they're the last to reopen when it rains. That might satisfy the neighborhood coalitions that want to save San Francisco's parkland from the soccer-industrial complex, but it doesn't serve their arguments for accessible public space.
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