GOLDEN GATE PARK activists have failed to get the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to overturn the flawed environmental impact report on the giant new garage that private interests have planned for the park. But there are still a few more hurdles the garage plan has to pass – and the supervisors need to stand with the neighborhoods and against the private interests and legion of lobbyists pushing this disaster.

Construction of the 800-space underground garage would disrupt public use of the Golden Gate Park Concourse and lead to the destruction of some of the concourse's popular, historic pedestrian tunnels. It would attract more cars – as many as 200 an hour on Saturdays – to the already-crowded area. It goes against the whole idea of the concourse as a pedestrian-friendly area, and its current design violates the promises made in the 1998 campaign that led voters to approve the plan.

More important, the garage represents creeping privatization of one of the city's public gems. The key decisions behind this project are driven not by the needs of park users, but by the desires of the private M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and financier Warren Hellman. The museum's well-heeled backers want an underground parking garage to make the De Young more attractive as a site for society events. Hellman has long expressed his support for turning control of the entire park over to a private foundation. And indeed, major changes in the garage plans have been made behind closed doors by the Music Concourse Community Partnership, a private group Hellman controls (see "Hellman's Hole," 2/7/03).

On Sept. 16, the supervisors approved the garage EIR, 8-3, with only Matt Gonzalez, Tom Ammiano, and Chris Daly voting against it. But that's not the end of the story: the board still has to approve a lease deal to give the MCCP the right to build and operate the garage. That vote is not yet scheduled.