While Mr. Batt's request last week for "the name(s) of the person or people responsible for the editing, oversight, and upkeep of your website" took us by surprise, the implication that our names and identities were somehow secret seemed absurd. Not only are the names of both web domain registrants and officers of non-profit entities public record, my name and the names of other Save Audubon Park officers and advocates have been printed numerous times in various publications since this dispute began almost a year ago. In addition, a contact email address has always been shown on the site, which many, many people have had no difficulty in using.

Regardless of what has transpired this past week, when the smoke from these various smokescreens clears, we will be left with the same facts. Ten years ago, the Audubon 2000 master plan proposed considerable increases in revenue to be generated from food concessions and gift shops. Constrained by zoning regulations, all such activities, the Audubon Tea Room and Audubon Marketplace among them, have had to be squeezed within the zoo boundaries. While the rediscovery of their long-neglected golf course was never part of Audubon 2000, if there had been any doubt that the cornerstone of the redevelopment was the construction of a new 8000 sf restaurant/clubhouse in the park itself, the complete shelving of the project for a year because they lacked the money for this new building made that perfectly clear. The ANI has also been strongly, and successfully, advocating changing the zoning for parks to allow for any commercial developments they may choose to adopt in the future-- and more there will be!

Unfortunately, any hopes of changing the composition of the Audubon Commission to make it more accountable to the public rather than the ANI have probably been dashed by Ron Forman's recent selection by Mayor Nagin to be chairman of a five-member panel recruiting new faces to our public boards and commissions. Despite the fact that the Audubon Commission submitted its Zoo 2000 Master Plan to the City Planning Commission ten years ago for review and approval, our new City Council now claims that's a bad idea. Worse, Mr Batt's decision last week, and his admission that our weak City Planning Commission doesn't want to get involved in this particular land use dispute, confirms our worst fears that the new City Master Plan and the new Land Use Plan are utterly hollow instruments, and the countless citizen hours and thousands of taxpayer dollars that went into their development were a total waste of time and money.

Any concessions made by the AC/ANI in this dispute have been miniscule and grudging. Despite Mr. Batt's comments to the contrary, even the ANI has conceded that more public input might have been warranted. Now, with our city government unwilling to impose any controls on them whatsoever, concerned citizens are left in the same disenfranchised position that led to this dispute, and the creation of our opposition website, in the first place. Thus unfettered, the AC/ANI will undoubtedly continue its expansion of revenue-generating facilities into the remaining open spaces of the park, setting the stage for more such loud public outcries in the future. Concerned citizens should not have to start websites in order to be heard (and ignored, at least in this case) by our elected officials and public commissions.

This organization began in August 2001 as a website designed simply to publicize the details of the ANI's golf course plans-- which had been deliberately hidden from the general public-- and to act as a forum for those disenfranchised to express their views and opinions. We knew very little about Ron Forman or the ANI up to this point; having never before been engaged in either dispute or discourse with them, we were naive, and assumed that when they recognized the sheer volume of opposition to their plans, they would relent and make significant modifications to mollify the public. We were wrong, of course, hence the evolution of Save Audubon Park into a non-profit organization, whose primary goals remain to make the AC/ANI more accountable, and to mitigate their damage to Audubon Park. These same goals will also form the foundation of the broader watchdog approach of the upcoming AudubonWatch.org.

We discovered that Ron Forman has come to represent, not only everything that is right with the AC/ANI, but everything that is wrong with it as well. We are certainly not the first group of people to call Ron Forman to task for his actions, we are merely the latest, and possibly the most public. And no matter how often and how loudly Mr Forman and Mr Batt complain about the "reprehensible" tone of saveaudubonpark.org, we have never compared their intelligence unfavorably to that of an orangutan, as Mr Forman did at the January 16, 2002 Audubon Commission meeting in reference to those who dared to oppose him. Somehow, the infamous "pig cartoon" just does not seem like that "reprehensible" or outrageous a retort to his general contempt for the opposition and his insulting words that day.

Call us "reprehensible" for pointing this out, but Mr Forman also stated, at the April 24th Audubon Commission meeting, that he would not oppose R-02-192 and imposition of Planning Commission oversight of ANI projects. However, the events of the past week have shown these to have been very hollow words indeed.