Like a dense morning fog burned away by the afternoon sun, a last minute effort to scuttle the new Alcatraz ferry service evaporated without even making it to court.
By JB Powell
Published: October, 2006
On Sept. 8, just days before arguments were to be heard in San Francisco Superior Court, local activist group Citizens to Save the Waterfront abandoned their lawsuit against Alcatraz Cruises, a subsidiary of Hornblower Yachts.
The group had sought to block Hornblower from beginning their new ferry service to The Rock out of Pier 31½. But the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) decided unanimously not to support the suit, and crippled its chance of success.
In a letter dated Sept. 1 to Monique Moyer, executive director of the San Francisco Port Commission, Will Travis, BCDC’s executive director, wrote, After carefully considering all the facts … our staff has concluded that the activities associated with the initial start-up of the ferry service between San Francisco and Alcatraz do not require further authorization from BCDC at this time. On Sept.8, in a closed-door meeting, the full board of BCDC voted 13-0, with one abstention, to uphold Travis’s conclusion.
In its suit, Citizens to Save the Waterfront argued that Hornblower’s existing BCDC-issued operating permit for Pier 31½ does not allow for the large increase in traffic the Alcatraz service would bring. During the peak summer tourist season, nearly 5,000 passengers a day take the nine-minute ferry ride to the famed former prison.
But in his letter to Moyer, Travis relayed Hornblower’s plans to augment [their] existing facilities with mobile stanchions … hollow traffic barriers … [and] up to three trailers, each holding three toilets. Because these new facilities would all be temporary and easily moved, BCDC concluded that they would not constitute the placement of ‘fill’ within BCDC’s jurisdiction, which would trigger the need for a new operating permit.
Travis also asserted in his letter that the thousands of new Alcatraz passengers would not represent a substantial change in the intensity of use, a condition that would also trigger the need for a new permit. By its vote in favor of his conclusions, BCDC upheld that view.
Jon Golinger, project director for Citizens to Save the Waterfront, took issue with BCDC’s decision. [Travis’s] reasoning, he asserted in a phone interview, seems like a piece of cellophane. It is both stretched very thin and [it is] pretty transparent. It looks like a conclusion [not to support the lawsuit] with an argument wrapped around it [after the fact].
As an example, Golinger cited a portion of Travis’s letter devoted to a typographical error in Hornblower’s original operating permit, which states that Pier 31½ may provide access for 200,000 to 5000,000 [per] year.
In the letter to Moyer, Travis acknowledges that there was clearly a typographical error, in the ‘50000,000’ number……[and that] it seems reasonable to believe that the correct number is 500,000… [And] the permit does not contain any language restricting use of the dock to whatever annual level of passengers was anticipated by the applicant.
When reached for comment via email, Travis defended the conclusions: Our staff met with representatives from [all of the parties involved] … We discussed all of this information with staff from the California Attorney General’s office [before reaching a decision.]
Travis also pointed to the nearly unanimous vote, with only one abstention, by the full board of BCDC as confirmation that our staff’s analysis of the laws, facts, regulations, and permits applying to the situation was correct.
Citizens to Save the Waterfront’s decision to abandon its lawsuit cleared the way for Hornblower and its subsidiary, Alcatraz Cruises, to carry passengers, as scheduled, which began on Sept. 25.
Image by Francisco Arreola
