In case you missed it yesterday April 17th, the plight of Louis’ Restaurant, formerly featured here at A World, earned front page pub in the San Francisco Chronicle.
It was a well written article, balanced and sympathetic, so my only gripe with the writing is in the statistics. Author Peter Fimrite must have looked at the online petition to save the Hontalas’ restaurant before the story appeared on this blog, because his quote of “nearly 1800 people” was surpassed early last week. The petition had more than 2000 signatures by April 12th. The count as of this posting, April 18th: 3,483 signatories!
The NPS spokeswoman (Alexandra Picavet) in the article definitely did her best to keep the situation at arm’s length. The Park Service has to have an impartial bidding process. But impartial does not mean, as Picavet (or Fimrite, perhaps taking liberties in paraphrase) implied, that the Park Service must ignore Louis’ history, reputation, and the sustained quality of service Louis’ has provided. In fact, according to the law that required open bidding passed in 1998 (my emphasis added):
[…] (A) In selecting the best proposal, the Secretary shall consider the following principal factors:
(i) The responsiveness of the proposal to the objectives of protecting, conserving, and preserving resources of the unit of the National Park System and of providing necessary and appropriate facilities and services to the public at reasonable rates.
(ii) The experience and related background of the person, corporation, or entity submitting the proposal, including the past performance and expertise of such person, corporation or entity in providing the same or similar facilities or services.
(iii) The financial capability of the person, corporation, or entity submitting the proposal.
(iv) The proposed franchise fee, except that consideration of revenue to the United States shall be subordinate to the objectives of protecting, conserving, and preserving resources of the unit of the National Park System and of providing necessary and appropriate facilities to the public at reasonable rates.
Additionally, the Hontalas’ restaurant predates the incorporation of the GGNRA by the National Park Service. A strong case can be made according to principles of historic preservation the NPS employs, that the restaurant’s historic character makes it one of the resources the park protects. Similar arguments have been made for preserving the historic character of concessions in many of America’s most famous national parks, like Yellowstone and Yosemite. Nobody seems better suited to “protect, conserve, and preserve” the historic character of Louis’ restaurant than the Hontalas family.
It sounds like the Hontalas’ aren’t panicking just yet. Our government is good at screwing things like this up, however, so now is a really good time to write to the GGNRA or call the Pacific West Region of the NPS at (415) 561-4700. Let them know that you consider Louis’ part of the historic landscape the park was established to preserve!
And if you haven’t signed the petition yet, do it here.
Louis Wertz 