Editor:
\nAfter my initial anger at seeing the grove of trees at Hillside Park removed, I took the time to read the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Master Plan, all 100-plus pages.
\nI am all for erosion control and making the park safer for visitors, but it\u2019s called a “natural”\u00a0park for a reason. More paving and planting oak trees and native Torrey pines is a fine idea, but they require many decades to grow to become shade trees. Even if some of the trees were diseased, everything eventually dies. Couldn’t we have kept the shade trees we had\u00a0for a few more summers,\u00a0until those oaks had a half-century to grow nearby?
\nAnd the “Master Plan” calls for shade trees for the\u00a0parking lots?\u00a0Do we go there to hang out at our cars?\u00a0Oh, and for places for “reflecting.” That grove was pretty cool and zen-like. Have you been to Crystal Cove in OC and seen the coastal trail “improvements” there? Very few people seem to be on them. They look very similar to the sanitized computer simulations of the trail “upgrades” in the SCNPMP. Not one shade tree in sight, ah, perfect for our nine months of warm weather.
\nI guess that instead, I wish the larger needs of the community were addressed with some of these resources.
\nHomelessness, city roads\/sidewalks, traffic,\u00a0perhaps\u00a0enforcing building code heights. The cliffs are OK, as is, to most of us. I had hoped a small educational visitor center and restrooms might be built next to the “grove” at Hillside Park, in my lifetime, or my kids\u2019.
\nThanks for the opportunity to vent and have my opinion shared. In all honesty, I\u2019m glad I took the time to read the Master Plan. It reminds me a little of how we thought everything that the Army Corps of Engineers did was always done right, until dams and bridges failed and Katrina came along. I am skeptical of the idea that “all progress is good.”\u00a0
\nPS \u2013 I predict a sinkhole on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard in the not too distant future (between Carmelo and Ladera streets) due to the heavy equipment, fire trucks, lifeguard rescue vehicles, etc. and the huge sea caves underlying the street. I pray no one is hurt.
\nThank you for your time. Jeff Yeomans,
\nStill OB proud<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor: After my initial anger at seeing the grove of trees at Hillside Park removed, I took the time to read the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Master Plan, all 100-plus pages. I am all for erosion control and making the park safer for visitors, but it\u2019s called a “natural”\u00a0park for a reason. More paving and […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":279681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Opinion: Skeptical that Sunset Cliffs Master Plan is a good thing","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11552,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-opinion","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}