Gentlemen,
"Two conservation groups, the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Committee for Green Foothills, are reviewing legal options."
The Committee for Paranoid, Elitist, Zillionaire Nimby's is going to give John Fry more tussle than he bargained for. These people - including Julia Bott's "Park Preservation" organization - are relentless, dishonest and carry a long history of trampling on people's rights. If you look up "Enviro-Nazi" in the dictionary, you will see Julia Bott's picture with the rest of her well-connected leftist coterie.
I wish John Fry all the luck in the world, but I sat there and watched Julia Bott (when she was the head of the Sierra Club) for years. There is simply no way to negotiate with them in good faith. These people are experts at ambush, stealth and underhanded political maneuvers.
They have an endless list of hysterical wackos to show up, agitate, protest and scream outrage at public meetings (for the sympathetic media) - as well as the skill and legal firepower to delay delay delay delay until even the most committed person will finally run out of money and stomach lining.
I am still confused (believe it or not, I have never been on the property) as to why there was such a ruckus when Flying Lady Golf Course existed on the same site for decades. I know it had been abandoned for a few years, but technically, would that not be a remodel of an existing course in terms of permitting?
I hope John Fry has plenty of intestinal fortitude, I've seen these unreasonable, irrational, lunatic activists work against a golf course for the public players in San Mateo County.
The San Mateo Golfer's Association was a large collection of honest, hardworking people of limited means who just wanted what was agreed to (a recreational easement for a golf course) as part of a 1966 land trade with San Francisco in exchange for moving Hiway 280 further from the watershed on San Mateo County land.
The fight went on for more than 30 years. Julia Bott, in collusion with Willie Brown and Marion Otsey (Public Utilities Commission), finally wore them out. Most had moved away or died when Willie Brown shoved the knife in their backs in 1999.
John Fry better make sure to wear a flak jacket and keep a vile of Rabies antidote close at hand . . . . .