Leave Fort Mason alone 2

The campaign to screw up Fort Mason is well underway, and John King is excited. When King gets turned on you can be sure it involves a project that will degrade the city.

King on the Fort Mason competition:

Fort Mason Center's design competition is shaping up as the Bay Area's best architectural show in years...The center's design jury will meet in July to whittle the list to three, each of whom will receive $20,000 stipends to craft full proposals over the summer. I can't wait to see the results.

Oh, yes. Maybe the winning design will be as exciting as the ludicrous Beth Shalom synagogue, the Rincon Hill highrise, the chronic traffic jam known as Octavia Blvd., and the ugly new de Young Museum, to mention a few of King's dubious enthusiasms.

Rich Hillis (above), who used to work in Mayor Newsom's City Hall, is in charge of the competition. Hillis thinks Octavia Blvd., which brought much of the old Central Freeway traffic to the surface streets in Hayes Valley, is "helping to heal" the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Now he's determined to "heal" an already healthy, attractive Fort Mason. What could go wrong with that?

Hillis has just been appointed to the Planning Commission, where, while he screws up Fort Mason, he can help John King and the Planning Dept. find more garish, destructive projects for San Francisco.