The goal to purchase the AES power plant in Redondo Beach and restore it to a public park is alive and well. The vision that was approved in the 2005 advisory vote is slowly moving forward despite our economic woes, and despite the continued opposition from those that would still like to see a development plan here.

Redondo residents can help the park effort succeed on Nov. 4 by voting "Yes" on Measure DD and "No" on Measure EE. The South Bay Parkland Conservancy's board recently voted to support DD and oppose EE for one simple reason: Measure DD would call for a citywide vote if the AES power plant is rezoned. (This site is currently zoned for industrial uses.)

Voting "Yes" on DD and "No" on EE is critical. You need to look no further than to who is funding the two campaigns for and against DD. The California Association of Realtors, the MCL Marina Corp. and AES power company (based in Arlington, Va.) have contributed more than $65,000 to the "No" on DD campaign under the guise of "Save Redondo." Only two residents contributed more than $99 in their latest filing - for a grand total of $200.

Every contribution to the "Yes" on DD campaign, run by Building a Better Redondo, is from local residents. This campaign has only spent one-tenth of the budget of Save Redondo, which is funded mostly by out-of-town groups with their own economic interests.

Measure EE would not require a vote if the AES site is rezoned, and if EE gets over 50 percent of the votes cast, and more votes than DD, then the AES site can be rezoned without your vote, which is why we oppose EE.

Even though the public voted overwhelmingly for the park vision in a citywide election in 2005, despite the heavily biased ballot language, it is not a done deal. The vote was strictly advisory. It has no real power.

This means any City Council can ignore it and rezone the AES site for development. The Planning Commission and the City Council in 2002 voted unanimously to rezone this land for 2,998 condos over the objections of hundreds of residents, and called it "The Heart of the City." It took three years, two referendums and an advisory vote to stop that particular plan, and many of those who supported it are still city officials in positions of power.

Measure DD would amend the city charter to call for a public vote on large rezonings, not small ones, eliminating the risk of this, or any future City Council, from rezoning this site without your approval.

Passage of Measure DD is important and will help, but is by no means a guarantee that our park vision will be realized. Political will and funding are the real challenges, and both come and go and come back again as time marches on.

On the funding side, the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Act of 2008, or Assembly Bill 31, was recently signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. This bill reserves $400 million from Proposition 84 for new parks in densely populated, "critically underserved areas" of California. What is a "critically underserved community"? It's a city with fewer than 3 acres of parkland per thousand residents.

Guess what? Redondo Beach is a critically underserved community - with only 2.45 acres per thousand residents, including the beaches. So here is one very large pool of money that will be available to help with the purchase and restoration of this site for a park.

The AES power plant, formerly owned by Edison International, is 40 years old, inefficient and rarely operates. It uses a process called once-though cooling that is permitted to withdraw 932 million gallons of seawater every day, killing millions of fish larvae and microorganisms that are the biological building blocks of a healthy marine environment. And it's noisy, waking up residents blocks away in the middle of the night. Not to mention the nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide that it emits in this densely populated area.

This is a fantastic opportunity to restore a blighted piece of our coast to open space, greatly upgrade the business climate in a depressed area, and provide badly needed recreational and educational needs in the most densely populated area on the California coast. Please help us with our cause by joining the South Bay Parkland Conservancy and, if you are a resident of Redondo Beach, by voting "Yes" on DD and "No" on Measure EE.

Bill Brand is president of the South Bay Parkland Conservancy. To learn more about the conservancy, visit the Web site www.southbayparks.org.