With all this about the Greater Bay papers...

It's important to pause and review what we were promised as part of the city's beach project. Remember, the resulting project was to be everything that the Greater Bay plan wasn't. Click here for an article by Willie Howard which was published in September of 2010.

In it, we are assured that the new project - the one that was eventually built - would have "nearly 20 green features" including solar water heaters, use of natural lighting (besides windows?), a system that would recycle water from the air conditioning condensate and that the pool area could be used as a cistern. We were also assured that the building would only be $6 million, which would include $1 million in contingency monies if "unforeseen" conditions were met - like having to tear down the entire building? This is when the city was still talking about "restoration" or "re-building" and we all know that it was torn down.

Oh, and how we would pay back funds that the city borrowed from itself - with a bank loan. Anyway, in hindsight, we know that it turned out to be a very different project. And I hear there are still water issues with the building.