City Council Moves Forward on Blair Park Ballfield

A bleary voted 4-1 Tuesday morning to move forward on a Blair Park athletic field plan, adding provisions to analyze a few more traffic safety measures on busy Moraga Avenue.

It was 2:47 a.m. Tuesday.

Public comment on the Blair Park measure began at 7:35 p.m. Monday.

Council member Garrett Keating voted no, saying the council should wait for a more thorough supplemental Environmental Impact Report including detailed analyses of traffic options. Keating said there had been insufficient study of the current Piedmont Recreational Facilities Organization plan, including the traffic effects of a pedestrian-activated flashing crosswalk light on Moraga Avenue at Red Rock Road (the turn-in for the city Corporation Yard).

The council motion contemplates a final city vote for the PRFO plan as early as April 4. The motion directs PRFO and its traffic engineer by the end of this week to propose other safety alternatives for the traffic flow at a new field for soccer, baseball, softball and lacrosse in currently undeveloped Blair Park.

Geoff Grote will then forward the traffic ideas to the city’s environmental consultant, looking for recommendations by the April 4 meeting on whether alternatives would require a simple addendum to the EIR certified by the City Council in December, or perhaps a more significant supplemental EIR, which might push the project back a few months.

The vote came after comments by dozens of residents, with the crowd flowing into a City Hall corridor and conference room. Speakers detailed traffic safety fears, environmental damage, a couple of alternative plans and the urgency of action because of the need for more athletic fields in Piedmont.

The record included a Monday letter expressing grave doubt about the development of Blair Park from Eric Angstadt, deputy director of the Community and Economic Development Agency of Oakland. “The city remains concerned about Piedmont’s failure to conduct any meaningful analysis of the project’s environmental impacts, including the unaddressed impacts on Oakland residents,” Angstadt wrote.

More than a half-hour before the meeting, advocates gathered in the walkway entrance to City Hall. Flanked on either side of the entrance were two sides of the issues: ballfield advocates with T-shirts emblazoned with “Support the Gift/ Blair Park” (referring to citizens’ donations to the city for environmental studies and pledged donations for future maintenance of the park) and preservation advocates sporting their T-shirts (“Save Moraga Canyon”).

There were balloons. There were cookies and refreshments for sale.

By 7:15 p.m., a quarter-hour before the Blair Park part of the meeting was to start, the council chambers’ seats, 40 of them, were spoken for, so the overflow crowd parked in the corridor and conference room.

City staff had paper copies of agendas, minutes and comments prepared — that’s 98 pages of residents’ comments received as of 3 p.m. March 18.

Watch for updates on the council meeting on Piedmont Patch Tuesday.