Golden Gate Park News: Warren Hellman's MCCP Destroys Northeast Pedestrian Tunnel

The Music Concourse is under seige. Warren Hellman and Dick Young of the Music Concourse Community Partnership (MCCP) plan to destroy all three pedestrian tunnels. They just took out the first one. And the southeast and soutwest tunnels are still at risk. These people know no bounds; they are stating by their destruction that the Concourse is theirs.

They just drilled holes into the roadway above this 108-year old historic landmark, breaking a water main and flooding the entire area and the Children's Playground at 10th and Fulton with raw sewage. Irreversible damage to OUR PARK, not theirs.

Michael Ellzey, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority, was unavailable for comment, but you can try to reach him at 415-831-2704 to let him know how you feel about his promise last week before the Citizen's Advisory Commitee to protect the architectural features of the Music Concourse. He had just apologized to the public for the destruction of concourse trees that were to be protected.

Dick Young, President of the Music Concourse Community Partnership, Big Man from Bechtel Corporation, was hired by Warren Hellman to run his secretive MCCP after Young successfully green washed the deYoung Museum's parking garage, by packaging the auto-free Pedestrian Oasis and FREE garage for Prop J voter approval in 1998. As a Bechtel project manager in 1998, Young worked with Jim Ross of Solem & Associates to develop the wonderful four color graphics that helped sell their garage to the public. He now represents American Industrial Partners, Inc. which specializes in "private investments in public equity" and are somehow involved in the attempted financing of the garage.

You can reach Dick at 415-788-7354 if you want to let him know how you feel about private companies who destroy our public parks. Maybe it's Time to Kick Dick out of Our Park.

Just minutes after one of the directors of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition spoke against the illegal garage plan during the Board of Supervisors appeal hearing on September 16, 2003, Dick Young confronted the person. He stated, "You stabbed us in the back! And I'm going to get you for this!"

Shortly thereafter, Warren Hellman, genious mastermind behind the failed UCSF/Stanford privatization scam that cost taxpayers $300,000,000, called the SFBC to deny their access to his Great American Music Hall for a seasonal fundraising event. Hellman wanted to punish any groups who he otherwise has been funding through his generous connections to the SF Foundation, his Hellman Family Fund, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, Levis Strauss Fund, etc..

They had to beg to keep the venue which was only weeks away. This is a blatant violation of SFBC's free speech rights as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But Hellman is above the Law, like Dick Young from Bechtel. Above the law. Hell they wrote Prop J in 1998 and they've been rewriting it ever since. They think they are the Law.

When one of the members of Save Golden Gate Park, the legal defense commitee of the Alliance for Golden Gate Park, called Dick to get access to his minutes and meetings, Dick told him to go screw himself. He said, "We are a private non-profit corporation. We don't have to give you access to anything, pal. And I'm going to get you!"

Dick Young has a serous problem with threatening people and tunnels. But, since 1998, he's done nothing to implement the Pedestrian Oasis vision, and the New deYoung Garage that he was instrumental in greenwashing is now being challenged in Superior Court on May 10th.

This project is a prime example of a dirty back room Democratic Party machine secured Willie Brown Deal that is coming unraveled. Residents never voted for this boondoggle.

Park advocates are planning to begin a protest and vigil at the site of the JFK bridge and 9th Avenue adjacent to Warren Hellman and Dick Young's crime scene.

TAKE BACK THE PARK!

Save Golden Gate Park! 415-621-3090
Alliance for Golden Gate Park 415-661-7927
Trees Not Cars 415-387-5435