The proposal to open the Ranch to the public under a lease management agreement comes from a family with a long-established record of public service and philanthropy, is supported by many locally, and is congruent with standard lease management agreements involving some form of privatization, as we posted earlier here and here.
Given that, the opposition as stated in this Sacramento Bee editorial seems overwrought.
An excerpt.
“For Sacramento County supervisors, decision time could come today on what to do with Gibson Ranch regional park.
“Interim County Executive Steve Szalay's staff report, however, is so contradictory that the supervisors truly are on their own.
“The obvious action: Start over.
“That report notes that a selection advisory committee and county staff recommended rejection of the only proposal submitted, which came from developer and former congressman Doug Ose. Further, it acknowledges that since then "several new entities have approached Regional Parks and expressed interest in submitting a proposal for the operation of Gibson Ranch." So why not see what's out there, instead of proceeding with the only, still deeply flawed proposal that the county has received? This is a case where competition would be better than negotiating a sole-source contract.
“Yet the county executive now is recommending that supervisors "finalize negotiations" with "Gibson Ranch LP" – an entity proposed by Ose that does not yet exist and has no experience with park operations.
“This makes no sense whatsoever.”
