Correspondence with Patricia Martel, General Manager
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Despite serious
reservations concerning Pat Martel's experience and qualifications to lead
such a large organization as the Public Utilities Commission at this critical
juncture in its history, we were pleasantly surprised with Pat's up-front
approach and her expressed support for Lake Merced. Friends
of Lake Merced sent this congratulatory e-mail on September 26, 2001.
We
received a reply the next day, supportive and encouraging.
Friends of Lake
Merced had our first meeting with Pat October 25, 2001. Here's
the discussion outline that formed the basis for this meeting.
Two
weeks later, on November 15, 2001, Pat addressed a Town Meeting co-hosted
by Friends of Lake Merced and the Lake Merced Task Force. We were
disappointed when Pat did not mention any of the issues we had discussed
with her three weeks earlier.
When after a month we still had no response, Dennis Normandy, Vice President
of the Public Utilities Commission, suggested that we address a letter
to the Commission raising some of these same points. We
sent that letter to the Commission December 7, 2001. In addition,
we read this letter to the Commission members at their meeting of December
11, 2001.
Dennis Normandy, Vice
President of the Commission, requested that Michael Carlin, head of the
SFPUC planning department, prepare a response to this letter within 48
hours. While not quite making that target, Michael did prepare a
response, and it arrived in the form of a
letter addressed to Friends of Lake Merced, dated December 18, 2001,
and written by Pat Martel.
In the most
recent round, we replied to Pat in writing
on January 16, 2002. We have not as yet received any response.
Pat scheduled a meeting
with community stakeholders to discuss short-term programs to stabilize
Lake Merced. That meeting was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, July
2, 2002. Pat was a no-show, and this is not the first time.
Katie
Pilat, representing the Neighborhood Parks Council, took minutes of the
discussion that took place.
