Ray Catalano and other representatives of Friends of Moraga Canyon met recently with Geoff Grote, the Piedmont City Administrator, to discuss the status of the planning process and EIR (Environmental Impact Report) for the proposed Blair Park/Coaches Field project. Here’s his report from the meeting.

Barbara and Al Peters, Lynn Dee, Randy Wedding, and I met with
Mr. Grote at 4:00 PM on March 26th in City Hall. I began the
conversation by asking where the City was in the EIR process. I
prefaced the question with the observation that roughly 3 months had
passed since the Council committed to the combined Coaches Field/Blair
Park assessment but that no Notice of Preparation had yet been issued.
I asserted that the lack of a Notice of Preparation not only raised
questions about whether the City process to date had complied with the
State law, but had also left those of us living in Canyon
neighborhoods wondering whether the City had adopted the plan devised
by sports complex advocates, and shown on the City’s website, as the
project.

Here’s the rest of the report:

Mr. Grote responded that there was, as yet, no City project that could
be submitted to CEQA assessment. This circumstance arose, he noted,
from the fact that a temporary school facility was a possible element
of the project until the School Board rejected the alternative. The
City Council, he continued, must now decide which facilities and
activities would be included in the Blair Park portion of the study
area. This decision would then lead to a preliminary site plan and
schedule of activities that, while not final, would be sufficiently
detailed to allow consultants to conduct CEQA assessments. Mr. Grote
sketched a process in which he would go to Council with a list of
possible project elements (perhaps recommending which the Council
should choose), and also ask approval for a plan to fund the
development of the preliminary site plan. The funds could come either
from the private gift the City had received to develop the original
plan that included a school use, or from City funds. The private
funds could only be used if the donor agreed. Mr. Grote will soon
explore this alternative with the donor. He also informed us that the
City would likely contract with ELS to develop the site plan
regardless of who funds the work.

Mr. Grote further informed us that the privately funded survey of
Blair Park property lines and topography was nearly complete. He
agreed to provide us with the results of that survey.

All in attendance agreed that the Council’s decision regarding which
physical and program elements to include in the Blair Park section of
the project area should be made in public meeting, and reflect the
difficult fiscal circumstances that Piedmont, like other cities, now
faces. Mr. Grote noted that the project as described by the sports
complex advocates would likely cost at least $6 million and perhaps
more if a pedestrian bridge were required. He judged it unlikely the
City could commit to such a project in the near future. This, we
suggested, implied that a decision to assess such a major development
could leave an EIR at risk of challenge as no longer valid at the time
the project could actually go forward.

We then briefly explored alternatives to the private sports complex
proposal. We speculated that the community’s interest might be most
reasonably served by a project that improved Blair Park to include a
field of sufficient size for games for younger players and practice
for older teams. Other sections of the park might be improved for
more passive recreation uses or left in current condition to maintain
wildlife corridors. Such a plan might obviate the need for lights and
artificial turf at Coaches Field and for the massive retaining walls
along Moraga called for by the sports complex advocates. The problem
of safe crossing of Moraga by pedestrians would, of course, remain.
We all pondered whether any active sports facilities could be added to
Blair Park without an expensive and intrusive pedestrian bridge over
Moraga as well as a barrier along Moraga to force pedestrians to use
the bridge.

We also explored the possibility that the Coaches Field component of
the project, which needs relatively little additional description to
proceed to CEQA assessment, might be moved forward by separating it
from the Blair Park component that might be left undefined for the
present. We urged this not be done because it would revive our claim
of “piecemealing” the CEQA process — a claim made compelling by the
City’s acknowledgement that the CEQA assessment of one component of
the project could not be completed without committing to a future for
the other.

The upshot of the information exchanged at our meeting is that the
Friends of Moraga Canyon should redouble its efforts to inform the
Council, other deliberative bodies, and Piedmont residents not only of
the enormous damage a project such as that proposed by the sports
complex advocates would visit on Moraga Canyon neighborhoods in
Oakland and Piedmont, but also of the stunning costs Piedmonters would
incur for a benefit that can be had for much less elsewhere including
Alameda and, perhaps, Merritt College.

We, in short, need to go forward with our organizational, legal, and
political strategies as planned. We need, however, to focus not only
at the decisions that follow the CEQA process, but also at those that
yield a description of what the project to be assessed will include.