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By Chris Ingraham
In 1934, Alcatraz first became a federal prison. Hitler became Führer of Germany; the San Francisco Seals sold Joe DiMaggio to the New York Yankees; Donald Duck first appeared on the big screen. And in Alameda County, the East Bay Regional Park District came into being.
This year the Park District celebrates its 75th anniversary with a series of events designed to create awareness of both its impressive heritage and its ambitious outlook for the future.
From concerts to parades to movie nights and trail challenges, the celebrations will last all summer and into the fall. In addition to the fanfare, to begin its fourth quarter of a century with some enterprises that indicate its future direction, the Park District will undertake more than its usual array of projects designed both to preserve and improve the park system’s already expansive resources.
At Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline Park — the 741-acre protected area along San Leandro Bay, near Oakland International Airport — the Park District is rebuilding a state-of-the-art aquatic center. The new center will service the pier and nearby buildings, and provide training facilities and storage to help rowing crews take advantage of the Bay. The Park District especially looks forward to the opportunities the aquatic center will provide for local organization Oakland Strokes, which tries to teach and involve youth in rowing as a healthy way to take advantage of the region’s natural bounty.
Big Break Regional Shoreline will also see some major changes this year. The Park District is building a Delta Science Center where volunteers and staff can teach the public about the Delta region’s entire ecology. The only educational program of its kind, the Delta Science Center will include the in-ground installation of a large, three-dimensional model representing the whole Delta, from Oakley to Oakland. Visitors will be able to run water through the model’s tributaries to see how the Delta works.
It’s projects like this that excite the Park District’s general manager, Pat O’Brien. But he also believes, looking toward the future, that the important battle right now should be fought in preservation of new land from otherwise inevitable development. The East Bay is only so big, and the time is now. “Probably in the next 30 years or so,” O’Brien estimated, “the whole issue of, ‘Is it developed or is it preserved?’ is going to be over. The boundaries are already set.”
From its beginning, the East Bay Regional Park District has prioritized a legacy of preserved land and recreational space. Indeed, the Park District’s history tells a story of American foresight, conservation, and initiative. What started in 1934 as a small, local park district with an annual budget of $194,000, serving only seven Alameda County communities (and no parks), grew enough by 1936 to purchase the lands now known as Tilden Park, Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, and Lake Temescal. With these as its centerpieces, the Park District has grown, 75 years later, to include today some 65 parks covering almost 96,000 acres, over 1,100 miles of trails, and an inspiring abundance of campgrounds, historic sites, shorelines, and recreational and educational facilities across two counties.
O’Brien and others on staff are quick to mention the Park District’s auspicious beginning — or rather, the precarious circumstances that quite conceivably could have stopped it from beginning at all.
In 1934, America was at the height of the Great Depression: droughts, hobos, unemployment lines. In 1933, Governor James Rolph had signed a bill authorizing the formation of the Park District, but the bill would first need to pass through a 1934 public ballot, which would require supporting a hefty raise of taxes. Considering the economic hardship of the Depression, it’s easy to imagine voters refusing an initiative that would increase taxes merely for something so luxurious as the formation of a Park District. Yet the measure passed — convincingly — with a 71 percent margin.
Since that time, similar such public support has kept the Park District growing and improving. In 1988, Bond Measure AA passed with over a two-thirds majority of the public vote, giving the Park District $225 million, plus millions more in matched funds, making possible the acquisition of over 34,000 acres that will now be protected indefinitely. Twenty years later, last November, the public renewed Measure AA by passing Bond Measure WW, giving the Park District $500 million to carry its tradition of stewardship onward. Most encouragingly, Measure WW passed amidst the cusp of the new financial crunch we’re in today, with almost exactly the same undeniable support that ushered the Park District into being under similar circumstances 75 years ago.
This bodes well for the battle between preservation and development. As O’Brien pointed out, “The theme is there from our past, but it’s also the theme for the future.” Measure WW is the largest local park bond in the United States; what better way to fête a 75th anniversary? When it’s not busy celebrating its special year, the Park District will be using its resources to continue the extensive planning and coordinating involved in carrying out the projects that Measure WW will make possible. On slate for 2009 is also the finalization of repairs on sites damaged by winter storms three years ago, along with the continuation of several park access projects, designed to remove barriers to accessibility in a variety of regional park sites. If its past is any indication, these and other undertakings will keep the Park District thriving as it approaches its next big anniversary: the centennial.
For more information, including a schedule of commemorative events, visit www.ebparks.org/75.