Dear BPC Members and partners,

Thanks to all of you, as financial sponsors, attendees and speakers, who made our 22^nd Annual Decisionmakers Conference, “Sustainability Strategies for a Changing Bay”, a huge success in terms of both content and fundraising.  The audio and PPT files are posted on our website for your review.  We will be integrating many of the ideas stimulated by the DMC into our Work Program beginning with our June 24 Board of Directors 2:00 p.m. meeting at the Port of Oakland and continuing throughout the year.  Also on June 24 at 12 noon (before the Board meeting), we are hosting a Membership Briefing in the Port’s Exhibit Room to bring you up to date on the urgent issues of the day listed below.  We encourage your attendance at the June 24 briefing (which includes a box lunch), and all members are invited to stay for the Board of Directors meeting.  A RSVP form will be emailed shortly.  

 The following are some urgent issues that are currently claiming our attention: 

- The Governor’s proposal to “Eliminate the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission as a state department and realign its functions to a regional entity.” as presented in the Governor’s May Budget Revision;

- BCDC’s proposed Bay Plan amendments on Climate Change and Sea Level Rise;

- NOAA’s Endangered Species Act 4(d) rule re green sturgeon;

- LTMS dredged material (40-40-20) disposal planning and use options

- Seaport air emissions reduction planning and actions;

- Federal stimulus program (ARRA) execution for USACE, marine transportation and air emissions reduction projects.  

Please read the sections in our upcoming Ebriefs newsletter for more information and links to content.   As always, you are welcome to call me if you have questions or want to discuss these items further.

Ellen

The BPC is a founder and member of the Board of Directors of the S. F. Bay Trail “Ring Around the Bay”  and was pleased to celebrate as a sponsor of the Hayward Area Shoreline Planning Agency event at the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center on Sat. June 6.  We were honored to have Bay Trail legislative author and former Assemblymember (now California State Treasurer) Bill Lockyer as the guest speaker.  It is amazing that almost 300 of the targeted 500-mile project has been completed, and that portions of the trail are also used as bicycle commuter routes! .

To learn more about the Trail, please visit the San Francisco Bay Trail Project Website and/or read their Spring/Summer 2009 Newsletter

The BPC and several of its members were recently featured in Building the Bay Area, a recent book published by Marcoa Publishing.  The article is Profiles of Excellence - Bay Planning Coalition

The mission of the Bay Planning Coalition (BPC) is to ensure that commerce, recreation and the natural environment thrive in the San Francisco Bay-Delta region.

Founded in 1983, the BPC is a non-profit, membership-based organization representing a broad spectrum of Bay public and private sector entities including the maritime industry and related shoreline business, ports and local governments, landowners, recreational users, environmental and business organizations, labor unions and professional service firms in engineering, construction, law, planning, and environmental sciences.

Ellen Joslin Johnck, Executive Director

Chris Spanos, Executive Administrator