Lake Merced fans give utility officials a tongue-lashing
'Friends' group says PUC planner foils progress
by Tiffany Maleshefski
October 2, 2001
Lake Merced supporters spoke their mind to the city's Public Utilities Commission last week, accusing a top PUC official of delaying progress on the improvement of the ailing lake and of providing residents with vague, insubstantial information on the status of the project.
The lake advocates expressed their frustration at last Tuesday's PUC Commission meeting, where they awaited PUC planning director Michael Carlin’s quarterly report — an update on efforts to restore the condition of the lake, particularly in regard to its steadily declining water levels.
Echoing his remarks made over the past year, Carlin told commissioners, "Progress is being made on the front of Lake Merced."
Carlin said that the confidential nature of the agreements he was currently working on prevented him from discussing in a public forum the actual terms of those agreements.
Specifically, Carlin stated that terms relating to Lake Merced’s groundwater management, the use of recycled water inside the west-side basin, and rainwater-management issues could not be openly discussed, but he said progress was being made in each area.
"We continue to work with others in the community," Carlin said. "But I am constrained [in telling] you all of the progress we’ve made with the interested parties."
Concrete information wanted
Commissioners and community members weren’t satisfied with Carlin's report, however, which, according to activists Dick Allen and John Plummer, was the latest in a string of reports that had been allowed to be vague for too long.
"Lake Merced can no longer be treated as an issue peripheral to the main PUC vision," Plummer told commissioners.
Later, Plummer told the Independent that since 1997 he had been involved in monitoring developments affecting Lake Merced and that, as far as Carlin’s responsibilities were concerned, virtually nothing had been accomplished at the lake.
Plummer described Carlin as "not following up" on projects in the works and providing "nothing of substance" in his quarterly reports to the PUC Commission.
He said that any "community involvement" suggested by Carlin had not been with Plummer’s advocacy group, Friends of Lake Merced, or with its colleagues at the Committee to Save Lake Merced.
Group quits task force
Plummer also criticized lake-improvement efforts conducted by the city's Recreation and Park Department.
On September 6, Friends of Lake Merced decided not to renew its representation on the Lake Merced Task Force, the group established by the Recreation and Park Department to facilitate input and dialogue relating to improving the health of the lake.
Friends of Lake Merced, which served on the Lake Merced Task Force for two years, discontinued its membership on the task force, according to Plummer, because it believed it could provide stronger advocacy for the lake on its own.
"FOLM is determined that the lake level and water quality crisis be dealt with at the earliest possible date," states the press release issued by Friends of Lake Merced announcing the group's departure from the task force.
The press release further refers to Lake Merced Task Force "groups and individuals whose interests lie in maintaining the status quo," and it warns the public that the task force is "not the primary advocate" for environmental restoration of the lake.
Pattern of neglect cited
Jerry Cadagan, on behalf of the Committee to Save Lake Merced, concurs with Plummer’s assessment that Lake Merced has essentially been put on the back burner, at least on Carlin’s agenda.
Cadagan distributed excerpts from minutes taken at PUC meetings dating back to April 25, 2000, to illustrate what he and others described as a pattern of neglect exhibited by Carlin in updating the commission and the public on progress made at Lake Merced.
On April 25, 2000, according to the materials distributed by Cadagan, Carlin answered commissioners' questions about why the recycled-water project had been postponed by responding that Daly City was the party responsible for completing that project.
At the October 24, 2000, PUC meeting, Carlin updated the commission on the Lake Merced Comprehensive Management Plan project by stating that "there is not much development at this time but staff is continually working with the Lake Merced Task Force to come up with resolutions to the lake water level."
Several months later, according to the minutes of the May 8, 2001, PUC meeting, members of the public made a number of requests for concrete details about the comprehensive management plan for the lake.
At that time, then–PUC president Victor Makras stated that he "wanted to see the plan that addresses the needs for Lake Merced" and "asked that it be presented at the next quarterly report."
And with such requests in mind, that next quarterly report — presented at last Tuesday's meeting — was found insufficient by lake supporters and commissioners alike.
"There is need for speed in the progress in what we collectively want to do in what’s relevant to Lake Merced," Commissioner Dennis Normandy firmly told Carlin. "I am pleased with the vision," Normandy said of the PUC’s overall goals. “Come back to us with [reports] at fairly regularly scheduled [times] with time lines,” he then instructed Carlin.
It was the response that supporters of Lake Merced said they had been waiting a long time to hear.
"I’m optimistic things will be improved," said Cadagan. "[Carlin’s] responsiveness has been less than ideal. In the past, quarterly updates have been insufficient."
