By JEANNE PRICE
jprice@thearknewspaper.com

While plans for a mooring field to accommodate several hundred boats in Richardson Bay were mothballed only six weeks ago, there's movement afoot that may revive the idea — though on a much smaller scale — so sailing fans can watch next year's 34th America's Cup yacht races off the Sausalito shoreline.

The office of Third District Marin Supervisor Kathrin Sears, who represents the county on the Richardson Bay Regional Agency board, acknowledged there's a tentative meeting planned in coming weeks with the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, county staff and agency Vice Chairman Emmett O'Donnell, who is Tiburon's vice mayor. While Sears' aide, Leslie Alden, said no date has been set and it won't be until O'Donnell returns from vacation, she characterized new talks with the commission as a "restart" of the whole idea.

O'Donnell, reached by phone from northern Italy, said he's floating the idea of a small, 20-boat, privately owned and managed field as one that might be acceptable to the commission. But, he added, he "is not at the point of submitting an application to the commission. Everything is still under discussion."

Ben Berto of the Marin County Community Development Agency, who serves as the Richardson Bay Regional Agency's clerk, said the latter agency is open to various ideas at this point, and a privately owned field is just one of them.
"Right now we are half a million dollars short of anything happening," he said. While this issue will not appear on the Feb. 16 agenda, he said he expected it to be discussed.

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