S.F. supes vote to keep Ferris wheel 4 more years
The SkyStar Observation Wheel in Golden Gate Park will spin for four more years, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted by a thin margin on Tuesday.
An effort by Supervisors Connie Chan and Aaron Peskin to limit the 150foot tall attraction in the Music Concourse to a oneyear extension was defeated by a vote of six against and five in favor. But it was not that close because the resolution put forth by Chan and Peskin required twothirds approval, or eight votes, to pass.
Supervisors Shamann Walton, Chan, Gordon Mar, Peskin and Dean Preston voted in favor of the resolution to limit the wheel extension while supervisors Catherine Stefani, Matt Haney, Rafael Mandelman, Myrna Melgar, Hillary Ronen and Ahsha Safai voted against it.
By defeating the resolution the Board endorsed earlier votes by the Recreation and Park Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission to allow the big wheel to keep on spinning until March 1, 2025, at a cost of $18 per ride for adults and $12 per ride for seniors and
children.
“I’ve been on the Ferris wheel. It’s really fun and my daughter loved it,” said Ronen in voting against the resolution. “It provides something fun and unusual to do and it draws a diverse
crowd. My gut says, Why can’t we just leave it there for four years and enjoy it?”
The privately owned and operated attraction arrived one year ago to serve as a glittery centerpiece to the 150th anniver
sary of Golden Gate Park, which was to be celebrated on April 4, 2020, with the wheel allowed to go round and round for one year.
But the shutdowns dictated by the coronavirus pandemic canceled the April 4 celebration and shut down the SkyStar for all but 39 days of operation in 2020. In order to make whole the vendor, SkyStar Partners of St. Louis, and to aid the city in its economic recovery, a fouryear extension was approved over much resistance from neighbors and wildlife advocates who complained the wheel was too bright at night and its generator too noisy at all hours, thus a major disruption to bird life and the general sanctuary of the park.
Advocates liked the morale boost it provided along with free rides for underserved communities, and its potential to help neighborhood retailers. Both sides dug in and argued it out in a series of tortuously long and divisive public hearings, before the two city commissions and then the board itself.
“We’ve spent more time on this than the overdose crisis that has claimed more than 700 lives in a single year,” said Haney, in voting against the resolution, thus in support of the fouryear extension.