River access parking lot isn’t a ‘plum’ – not even a raisin

The headline in Friday’s edition of The Bee “Bluff residents offer parking lot as plum.....” was interesting but, once the article was read, it became clear that there wasn’t much actually being offered.

The offer to pay $100 for an area to be used as a parking lot is a smokescreen. The real issue with trying to create river access at that location is that there is no road down the bluff to reach the proposed parking area.

If the small group of wealthy homeowners and their San Joaquin River Access Corp. (SJRAC) want to also acquire the land for the proposed road, pay for the engineering, pay for potential remediation and pay for the construction of the required road (something exceeding $5 million), then the proposal would warrant consideration.

Until then, the SJRAC is not offering a “plum.” What its members are offering is not even a raisin, it’s just basically another in a long series of delay tactics.

Riverview Drive is an existing public road to the river bottom, and the land for a parking area is already owned by the public at that location.

Access via Riverview Drive is the only currently viable alternative.

This story was originally published November 23, 2017 at 4:24 PM with the headline "River access parking lot isn’t a ‘plum’ – not even a raisin."