East Bay Dinner: "Guardians of the Golden Gate"

Thursday, May 22, no-host cocktails/social hour - 6 pm, dinner - 7:00, program - 8:00, Berkeley Yacht Club on the Berkeley Marina, one block north of the west end of University Avenue (ample free parking is available in the Marina parking lots).

For more than 100 years, the U.S. Army guarded, protected, and occupied much of the beautiful land around the Golden Gate. Then the Department of Defense began to sell off large parcels of this priceless landscape.

"But In 1972, a miracle happened in the Bay Area," says Amy Meyer, co-chair (with honorary Sierra Club president Edgar Wayburn) of People for a Golden Gate National Recreation Area (PFGGNRA). The Department of the Interior thought that selling off the Golden Gate was a bad idea, and that instead, the land should be protected. Starting with Alcatraz Island and an additional 4,000 acres, the Interior Department's idea grew to 10,000 acres - but then stopped.

The department thought that that would be enough to protect the Golden Gate, but PFGGNRA didn't think the park was big enough. This coalition of over 65 organizations (in which the hike leaders as well as the political activists of the Sierra Club played major roles), as well as local representatives and senators, all pushed for more land to be included. "In the 1972 legislation, we got 34,000 acres, and over the next 30 years more land was added by several supplemental bills. The most recent bill, adding 5,000 acres, was passed in 2005."

The GGNRA now encompasses 80,000 acres along 85 miles of coastline in Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties. Twenty million people visit the park each year.

After seven years of collecting and connecting the well-known and the hidden stories of how we got "our national park next door" and "saved the headlands of the Golden Gate for public use in perpetuity" (two slogans from the campaign), Amy finished her book New Guardians for the Golden Gate, published by the University of California Press. Amy will give us the history of building the park, tell us some of the best stories, and show slides of photographs by outstanding Bay Area photographers that illustrate her book. Copies of the book will be on sale during the evening.

Cost of dinner and program is $23, including tax and tip. For a reservation, please send your check, payable to "Sierra Club", with your name, your telephone number, and the names of your guests, to:

Jane Barrett
170 Vicente Road
Berkeley, CA 94705
(510) 845-8055.

Attendance is limited to the first 115 reservations received. Reserve early, as these programs do fill up. Reservation deadline is Mon., May 12. There is no admittance for program only.