Stop the Steal?
An election of sorts was held, with two opposite positions. There was record turnout, and one position clearly won. The losing side claims—without providing any credible evidence—that the election was rigged and a fraud. A member of the governing body buys into this conspiracy and claims the results should be thrown out. Sound familiar? This is not about a national election, this is what some people are claiming about the recent Belmont Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) survey.
The PROS survey was designed to get community input on a wide variety of topics relating to parks, recreation programs, and open space. The Parks and Recreation Department hired an experienced consultant to conduct the the PROS survey, which was open to all Belmont residents, as well as members of our neighboring communities who use Belmont’s parks, open space, and recreational programs. In his state of the city address, Belmont Mayor Charles Stone said:
“Probably the most exciting thing coming up for Belmont Parks & Recreation is the Parks and Recreation Open Space Master Plan. And if you Google that you can find it online. This is going to be a process that is going to be rich on stakeholder outreach and input, and I know that because our Parks and Recreation Director Brigitte Shearer has already shown us she knows how to do that through the community center process. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to set up a roadmap for the next 20 years for our parks, our recreation programs, and our open space. So I would encourage everyone in Belmont or even if you don’t live in Belmont if you use our facilities, to pay attention to that website, there’s going to be a survey that goes up at some point and, you know, give us feedback, we’ve already received hundreds of emails about certain issues, we look forward to receiving even more and we want to know what you think. We know things like Waterdog park are amazing and we know they can be even better, and we know people are going to have a diversity of opinions about how to use things. I’m confident we’ll get through this and come out the other side with our amazing Parks and Recreation Commission and our PROS Committee and the citizens’ group the Parks and Recreation Director has assembled with an even better roadmap and a vision of an even more robust recreation system in Belmont."
Belmont State of the City Address, Mayor Charles Stone March 16, 2021: State of the City 2021 Mayor C.P. Stone at 1:01:29
Getting input from the broader community is completely consistent with The PROS guiding principles, which include the following:
Provide equitable access to resources and activities across the entire city
Promote inclusion to people of all backgrounds, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic position, or physical/cognitive ability
Make all users feel welcome and safe
The results of the survey overwhelmingly showed that both Belmont residents and non-residents want our open spaces to remain multi-use, as they have for decades.
For example, 2153 respondents (77%) rated Waterdog’s condition as excellent.
The following respondents agreed the following would “greatly enhance” the open space experience: Trail Maintenance 2448 (87%), adding trails 1999 (71%), and improving trails 1278 (46%)
By contrast, only 945 (34%) respondents prioritized habitat protection, only 797 (28%) supported designating certain trails for certain uses, and a paltry 135 respondents (5%) checked off “Reduce number of trails.”
When the survey results were presented at the next PROS Committee meeting, the same handful of people who make public comment at every meeting to demonize mountain biking claimed the survey was “tainted” and “hijacked” by mountain bikers and offered conspiracy theories about the survey results without providing any evidence to back up their claims. Disappointingly, one member of the PROS committee stated that the results should be thrown out, although he was unable to articulate any credible evidence as to why the survey was somehow invalid.
The mountain biking community cares deeply about Belmont’s open space, which is demonstrated by the hundreds of hours they spend each year volunteering to maintain the trails. And yes, they did get the word out within the community about the survey. This was done in an open and transparent way on public forums available for anyone to view. This is no different than Republican and Democratic parties canvassing neighborhoods and making phone calls to rally supporters in advance of elections.
The public commenters attacking the survey failed to mention their own efforts to get people with their point of view to participate in the survey. The Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club (a national organization with 3.8 million members) sent out a newsletter calling for their members to participate in the survey, and linking to the website of one of the anti-recreation activists. What did the Sierra Club do to influence the survey? Nobody knows, because they did not make their efforts on public forums.
When the survey data came in, there was a sudden and curious spike of anti-multi-use responses from places as far away as Beverly Hills and Florida. Yet none of the public commenters demanding that only Belmont residents’ input be counted complained about this.
The bottom line is this: people on both sides on the issue made efforts to “get out the vote” on the survey. The difference is, people in favor of shared access did it in an open and transparent way, and the people against shared access did it behind closed doors. There is no evidence that the survey was hijacked, tainted, or invalid in any way. The responses from non-Belmont residents were for the most part very consistent with the responses of Belmont residents. The survey results are consistent with the emails received by the city on open space issues. The survey results are consistent with the voters’ wishes as well. In the last Belmont City Council election, the only anti-access candidate on the ballot, Pat Cuvielo, lost in a landslide, getting less than 8% of the vote. The community as a whole has made its wishes clear. It’s time to move on with the master plan process. It’s time to start addressing the other two thirds of the master plan, which are parks and recreation programs.