The Biggest Boondoggles
Prop A & City Hall's "unsafe at any cost + the Big One is coming so give us a half a billion dollars - bond program; the “Most-Visited” park mythos; and cutting the National Park Service (again).
Prop A and City Hall’s false claims and prevarications surrounding the Billionaires’ Billion $ Boondoggle Bond still top the Boondoggle Chronicles Hot-3 List — Vote NO on Prop A — No More Broken Promises.
And Vote NO on A because $200 Million (nearly 40% of the bond) is for MUNI — the largest “allocation” line item in the bond. Muni & SFMTA might need money but that’s got nothing to do with earthquake safety and it sure shouldn’t come out of earthquake safety bond money.
The fundamental reasons to Vote NO on A remain unchanged from my previous writings: After 16 years and $1.44 Billion borrowed (and spent); ZERO high-pressure firefighting hydrants have been placed in the 15 unprotected western and southern neighborhoods (60% of the City); ZERO miles of emergency firefighting water pipe have been laid in those unprotected neighborhoods; and frankly PUC & City Hall have done squat for fire stations, police stations or any other post-earthquake firefighting and public safety capacity in our unprotected neighborhoods.
Where did all the money go you ask? Long-story-short, nowhere near the more than 15 unprotected neighborhoods where some 400,000 of us live. Remember, most of us unprotected residents are “County-folk” because according to City Hall we live in the County, which means we don’t count, according to them.
The other fundamental reason to Vote No on Prop A is, as friends of the Sub Jean and Barry have reminded me more than once, SFPUC wants to build drinking water mains, not firefighting pipe, which is why they came up with the Boondoggle Pipe Plan in the first place. As Barry put it, “using drinking water to fight post-earthquake firestorms is the stupidest idea ever.” I agree 100% with Barry and Jean, the drinking water/post-earthquake firefighting system they want to build is stupid. It is also far more expensive and will take much longer to build (like decades longer), plus it likely won’t work when the Big One and the Big Fire comes again.
Big expense, decades to complete, high likelihood of failure… that a real winner you City Hall boys came up with — Vote NO on Prop A. Oh, and $200 million (nearly 40%) for MUNI off the top & nothing to do with earthquake safety — Vote NO on Prop A.
Prop A — the Billionaires’ Billion $ Boondoggle Bond — remains at the top of our list because even though these critiques have been leveled at the bond, City Hall continues their obfuscations and prevarications. They don’t want us to know the truth.
Too late, we found out. And we told all of you, and I know a lot of you have been telling others, and on and on. That’s the funny thing about the truth, it finds a way, it lights the Way — “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5.
One Supervisor told me that while she recognizes the problems with the bond, she “held her nose and voted for it.” I don’t pretend to understand why. But that is the prevailing attitude in City Hall — we know it sucks, but we’re going to foist it on the people anyway [paraphrase].
Well, not me, I’m voting NO on Prop A so that we can have Equal Fire Protection for All who live in San Francisco — City-folk as well as us County-folk.
Rising up the Boondoggle Chronicles Hot-3 List is the claim by SF Rec & Park that the eyesore theme park slathered on top of the Upper Great Highway — Sunset Dunes — has become the “park” with the most visitors in the history of parks (or whatever their claim is these days).
[author’s note - in order to forestall any chipping about my fairness and accuracy, let us remember for a moment that SF Rec & Park made the Boondoggle Chronicles list because collectively they couldn’t find truth, accuracy or fairness with both hands and a mercury light. Save the critique, we’ll worry about accuracy right after Rec & Park does.]
SF Rec & Park claims that the park on the Upper Great Highway has had “1.7 million visitors” in it’s first year of existence.
So many of the claims embedded in this fact-sheet go far beyond straining credibility, they shatter it into a million little pieces. I have decided this propaganda sheet must be taken apart, brick by brick, until only the truth remains.
My decision is not out of pettiness. I believe, with all my heart, that in order to walk on the Path that I see before me, to keep to the Way, I must seek the truth and speak the truth.
I also believe that in order to have a functioning democracy and to make the best choices in the decisions that effect people’s lives, we must start with the truth, especially regarding the numbering and counting of ourselves.
This is who we are. These are our numbers.
The takedown of SF Rec & Park will not happen overnight. There will be research, Sunshine Ordinance (public records) requests, reading, review, data dissection, distillation, analysis and report writing. A lot will happen in between the writing of essays and reports here.
Today, however, I am going to lay out a couple of logical flaws that I have seen in acquisition, interpretation and presentation of Rec & Park’s “Park Visitors” data over the last year so that you, my intrepid readers, can have some idea of how we will be trying to investigate these “Visitor” numbers. As always, I welcome any ideas, thoughts, suggestions, critique or encouragement you may have along the way.
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
A. It was less than a month after the opening of “Sunset Dunes” that SF Rec & Park began calling the park on the Upper Great Highway the “third most visited park in San Francisco,” which strains credibility, to say the least. It is almost as if they had chosen that ranking before The Great Highway was even closed to vehicular traffic.
In fact, I think that is exactly what they did. They decided to label it as the “third-most visited park in SF” so that they could build a popularity narrative around it. I will be seeking evidence that demonstrates that plan and intent.
B. The Rec & Park fact-sheet suggests that the data they acquired came from infrared sensors that “count” visitors when they enter the park. Oh so many potential errors here. The closed portion of the Upper Great Highway is two miles in length and people “enter” the roadway (park) from along the entire two miles. They also exit the roadway along that entire length to cross into the dunes and onto Ocean Beach, to the chagrin of the Snowy Plovers who now have people along with their dogs crossing the dunes at all points on The Great Highway.
Plovers another day though. Here is what is interesting about the sensor numbers that I will be checking into. I walked up onto the Upper Great Highway on Monday with my canine buddy Hukka, who did not run into the dunes frightening the Plovers, btw. We walked onto the “park” and, therefore, I assume that I tripped a sensor and was counted as a visitor. But was Hukka counted too? He’s a big boy, and nice one too, but he’s taller than many smaller children. Did he trip the sensor? Did his new little Chihuahua-mix buddy Miso (who we just met) trip the sensor? No? Is that fair to Chihuahuas? Did we trip a sensor when we crossed over and walked out onto Ocean Beach a little ways (on a designated, roped off crossing corridor, not through the dunes)? Did we trip a sensor when we returned to the roadway? Did we trip a sensor when we departed the roadway to speak briefly with a couple of Rec & Park staff who tend the flowers, plants and landscaping at the Judah Terminus? Did we trip a sensor when we returned to say goodbye to Miso and take a few pictures of the 40 to 45 actual visitors that we saw on the roadway for the 45 minutes that we spent there?
Was I counted as one “Park Visitor” that day? Were Hukka and I counted as two visitors? Or were we counted as ten visitors because we crossed over, on and off, a total of five times? I am going to find an answer to these questions too, and ascertain whether SF Rec & Park makes any statistical adjustments for any of this.
C. I visit The Great Highway regularly. Not often, probably 3 or maybe 4 times per month, but regularly. I often cross over to go to Ocean Beach or go, as I did on Monday, April 27, 2026 at 1:00 p.m. PDT; to see for myself how many people are on the Upper Great Highway (UGH) that bright, beautiful, sunny day. I have taken dozens and dozens of pictures. But rarely have I seen or photographed crowds on the UGH that look like they could build into the thousands.
Even on No Kings Day, when there were tens of thousands of people on Ocean Beach, most of them (i.e. 90% of them) did nothing more than crossover the UGH going back and forth from their cars or other mode of transportation to the protest on Ocean Beach.
Since I do not visit The Great Highway every day, my visits and photographs are anecdotal and do not provide statistical evidence. However — and this is the thing that Rec & Park “numbers people” do not seem to understand — data sets and statistical analysis of that data need to be able to allow for actual real-world, lived experience from which the data set is derived. In other words, if there were an actual average of 4,000 people visiting the UGH every weekday for an entire year and I sample that dataset by visiting the park 36 days out of 365, I have a high likelihood of encountering a median sized crowd at least some of the time, and yet, I have not.
Rec & Park’s data and analysis should explain that, or my own analysis of their data might end up challenging the veracity of theirs.
Trump’s National Park Service budget climbing the Boondoggle Chronicles Hot-3 charts
In their 2027 Federal Budget Request to Congress the Trump administration asked for $2.14 billion for Operation of the National Park System, which is the entire budget for the operation and general administration of 433 National Park Service (NPS) sites.
A 26% cut — $760 million — of the NPS budget. Some of the more draconian cuts are as follows:
Construction, improvements, repair or replacement of facilities and planning would be reduced to $49 million (from $88 million, a 44% cut).
Historic Preservation Fund reduced by $170 million (from $181 million to just $11 million, a 94% reduction.
$205 million cut from total personnel compensation (a 19% cut to the fund that pay salaries for NPS employees). The NPS staff and Park Rangers from Golden Gate Natural Resource Area (GGNRA) are already understaffed by at least 10%. One has to assume GGNRA will be staring down the barrel of another 19% reduction in staff. Makes one wonder who will be left to protect the Snowy Plovers from all the people (and dogs) that walk through, hang out in, throw their garbage around and generally trash the sensitive dunes habitat?
“And if the president’s budget wasn’t bad enough,” said Emily Thompson, Executive Director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, “it comes on top of yesterday’s announcement from Secretary Burgum of a new effort to force more critical staff to leave the National Park Service.”
But here is what makes Trump’s NPS budget request #3 on the Boondoggle Chronicles Hot-3 list — the White House’s 2027 budget request would create the new “Presidential Capital Stewardship Program” at NPS.
The Fiscal Year 2027 budget also establishes a brand new “Presidential Capital Stewardship Program” within the National Park Service. The request is for $10 billion for priority construction and beautification projects in and around Washington DC, which is 460% more than the entire annual NPS budget proposed by the White House.
Like I said… Boondoggle!
I have a feeling that the NPS & Federal Budget issues will be looked at again here at Though the Heavens Fall… stay tuned.
john
Thank you for shining a light on these scams. It's great to have such a strong advocate for good government.
I find these financial cuts to NPS angering and heartbreaking.
As for the sensors on Sunset Dunes “park” I agree Rec and Park’s data collection methods are self-serving with a goal to support propaganda that will be spread to districts in San Francisco far from this so-called park’s location to encourage voters who never visit the area to vote against the Great Highway being shared with commuting drivers only on weekdays. Sharing isn’t their thing.
I’m not sure what skewed methods of counting the visiting population to this park are being used now, but I personally looked into the eco-counters they used when they first closed the road and they were greatly flawed.
At that time they used eco-counters. I researched after Sunshine requests for the information, and called the Canadian company that sold the eco-counters to RPD to find out how they worked and was told by them how and why they are not exact counts. The following is the information I was told:
1. The eco-counters are heat sensors triggered by heat producing entities that pass by them within a certain range. The entities could be a person, an animal, a vehicle. There is no video.
2. Once the counter records a pass, the data remains in the eco-counter box on the road for 24 hours. At the end of the 24th hour, it empties its record into a server located in Rec and Park’s offices. A Rec and Park employee then looks at the data and is supposed to differentiate and remove any counts that look like they might have been made by something other than a person. So, for example, a person going by might count as one pass, but a vehicle going by may count as 500 passes. The human being in the office looking at the data should know not to count the vehicle or whatever registered as 500 passes.
3. Someone pacing back and forth in front of the counter 10 times will be counted as 10 people. Someone walking or riding a bike in one direction and then returning and passing the eco-counter on the way back will be counted as 2 people.
4. Some sensors are able to count only 15 feet in front of them, some as many as 50 feet. The Great Highway has 4 10-ft lanes plus a 10-ft median. Eco-counters were placed at crosswalks 2 on the east side, 2 on the west side, some able to detect heat 50-ft away. In those cases one person walking north or south over the crosswalk in a lane closest to the median was counted as 4 people. If they walked back the same way over the same crosswalk, they were counted as 8 people.
How was it determined how many bicyclists, dogs, wheelchair users, pedestrians were using the closed highway? Rec and Park got their interns and pro-closure volunteers to go to the highway with pens and pads in shifts of a couple hours to write down what they observed. It happened on a few days. There were no independent checks on any of this.
Were these Rec and Park employees and volunteers accurate? Were the ones in charge of recording the data from the servers accurate? Who knows? What do you believe?