Harold Gilliam

Harold Gilliam is a San Francisco based writer, newspaperman and environmentalist, graduate of UC Berkeley, author of many books and former columnist for the "San Francisco Chronicle" and "Examiner". The "Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting", given by the Bay Institute of San Francisco, is named in his honor. Gilliam’s article, "The Destruction of Mono Lake Is on Schedule" appeared in the Examiner’s Sunday edition in March, 1979, and was one of the first articles to draw attention to Mono Lake’s plight.

Bibliography

*San Francisco Bay (1957) Doubleday & Co Garden City, New York
*San Francisco, City At The Golden Gate. (1959) Busse, Fritz. Text by Harold & Ann Gilliam
*The face of San Francisco (1960) Doubleday & Co Garden City, New York
*For Better or for Worse: The Ecology of an Urban Area (1972)
*Island in time;: The Point Reyes Peninsula - Sierra Club Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1973 ISBN 0-684-13439-X
*Between the devil & the deep blue bay;: The struggle to save San Francisco Bay (Chronicle Books)
*The San Francisco Experience - The Romantic Lore Behind the Fabulous Facade of the Bay Area (1972)
*The natural world of San Francisco (1967) ISBN 1-117-10667-5
*Creating Carmel: The Enduring Vision Gilliam, Harold; Gilliam, Ann ISBN 0-87905-397-6
*Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region (California Natural History Guides) ISBN 0-520-00469-8

"Chasing a green vision for the Presidio"by Harold GilliamSunday, July 27, 2008, SF Chronicle, Sunday Insight

Back in the early 1990s, the brilliant vision was ahead of its time: The Presidio of San Francisco, on its commanding heights above the Golden Gate, would include a global center for innovative ideas and technologies to make human societies sustainable, in line with the natural systems of the Earth.

The environmentally progressive idea originated when the old Army post was being taken over by the National Park Service.

But now, there is a proposal afloat to transform the park's main parade ground into a commercial area that would house a modern art museum, a 100-room hotel or lodge (probably by Marriott), an expanded theater, restaurants, galleries - all without any central theme.

So what happened to the original vision? And now that green is the color of the day, the year and hopefully the century, isn't it high time we revive that vision?

First a little history. Edgar Wayburn, longtime president of the Sierra Club, worked for decades on behalf of his ambition for a national park at the Golden Gate. He enlisted a local activist, Amy Meyer, and San Francisco Rep. Phillip Burton, who became a powerhouse in Congress. The result, after years of effort by these three and legions of volunteers, was passage of Burton's 1972 bill to create the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Burton had sagaciously included the Presidio within the GGNRA boundaries and inserted a little-noticed provision that if the Army ever left the post, the entire 1,491 acres would be taken over by the National Park Service. In 1988, sooner than anybody expected, the Army announced it would be leaving, and the National Park Service began planning the takeover.

At that time, the director of the National Park Service was William Penn Mott, a Bay Area park executive full of enthusiasm, eloquence and innovative ideas. Like Wayburn, he was a man of vision; he had long dreamed of a global museum at the Golden Gate. He was then 80 and about to retire as director of the agency, but when he returned to the Bay Area, he became a high-level consultant to the National Park Service team planning the Presidio.

He was elated to see an unparalleled opportunity for an expansion and fulfillment of his dream. The old military post overlooking the Golden Gate, he believed, could include a global center for consideration of the biggest challenges of the coming century - environmental and otherwise.A vision to stir our blood

Mott died before there was a formal response to his call for "the vision that will stir our blood." But in 1994, the National Park Service completed a report in the spirit of his dream: "Long the guardian of the Golden Gate, the Presidio now stands ready to house a network of national and international organizations devoted to improving human and natural environments and addressing our common future. The site will be used as a working laboratory to create models of environmental sustainability that can be transferred to communities worldwide. The inspirational setting will provide a respite for reflection and personal renewal."

Unfortunately, the idea was quickly dismissed as a fantasy and forgotten. The problem: How would such an ambitious project be paid for? The Newt Gingrich Congress elected in 1994 was not about to authorize millions for any such far-out notions. There were moves in the House to sell off most of the Presidio to developers.

Nancy Pelosi, who picked up the torch for the late Burton, headed off these problems by crafting a bill in 1996 that gave the Presidio a special place within the national park system. The bill's key provision: After 15 years of federal appropriations, the Presidio (unlike any other national park unit) would have to pay for itself. The bill set up the Presidio Trust, with a seven-member board of directors who would be required to develop enough income, primarily from leasing Presidio buildings and property, to make it self-supporting by 2013.

That effort now seems on track. Thanks to energetic promotion by the trust, the Presidio now has about 300 tenants, including nonprofits, businesses and occupants of residences. By far the largest tenant is the vast Lucasfilm complex, which is spread inside the Lombard Street gate.

Yet, in the necessary process of raising money, any overarching purpose seems to have been lost. The means have eclipsed the end.No common future

The trust is now holding public hearings on controversial plans to install the art museum (presumably the much-disputed proposal by the Don Fisher family of Gap fame for a glassy modern building to house its collection), and the other projects. There is no mention of Mott's global center for "addressing our common future."

In the meantime, the prospect of disastrous climate change has started an unprecedented change in the national and global climate of opinion. Concern for the natural systems of Earth is no longer confined to a marginal environmental movement but is becoming a pre-eminent paradigm that affects our daily lives as well as national and world affairs.

It is now clear that "business as usual," with its reckless exploitation of Earth's resources of soil, air, water, forests and minerals, is not sustainable.

Projects for green living and green technologies have been springing up across the country and abroad, in venture-capital enterprises, major corporations and universities. But there is no coordination, no focal point, no place where researchers come together to assess their accomplishments and share their findings in a cross-fertilization of ideas.

The vision of the Presidio as including a global center for "models of environmental sustainability that can be transferred to communities worldwide" seems ready-made for this moment in history.

Mott also wanted to provide displays that would educate the public in the stewardship of Earth's resources, including interactive exhibits attracting school classes, families and other visitors to consider green living and the human future on this planet. It's possible to envision the participation of artists and writers in creating appropriate murals, sculpture, architecture and literature.

Public interest seems assured. Annually the Green Festival in San Francisco and the comparable Bioneers Conference in Marin overflow with thousands of visitors, many from other states. A permanent global green center at the Presidio could become a national public attraction.

Any such center would not supplant other Presidio programs but would supplement them. Yet there is still the perennial question of cost: Who would foot the bill?

Although the Gingrich Congress is long gone, attempts to obtain government funding under the current economy might seem quixotic, at least in the near future. Yet there is the possibility of several sources of income to help revive the original vision of the Presidio, among them philanthropy, corporate sponsorship, Congress and other nations.

The alarming threat of global warming has shocked us into thinking about new ways of living and working, and it's time to heed architect Daniel Burnham's advice: "Make no little plans."

This place overlooking the symbolic Golden Gate might itself become a metaphorical gateway to the coming green century.

Harold Gilliam was The Chronicle's environmental columnist for three decades. He has authored a dozen environmental books. E-mail: [e-mail]