San Francisco might be a lovely place to leave your heart, but it’s not the place to park a battleship.
Instead, look east to scrappy Stockton, where residents eagerly await the historic warship Iowa, which was spurned earlier this month by San Francisco officials objecting to the war in Iraq and the military’s treatment of gays.
No such cautions were sounded in Stockton, where officials have orchestrated an aggressive battle plan to capture the Iowa.
“The San Francisco vote doesn’t surprise me,” said Doug Wilhoit, head of Stockton’s Chamber of Commerce and a former San Joaquin County commissioner. “It reflects their general attitude toward the fighting men and women of our country.”
By a vote of 8-3 on July 12, San Francisco County supervisors opposed a move by veterans groups and history buffs to provide a home for the Iowa in the City by the Bay.
Under the plan, the 63-year-old ship would have drawn tourists eager to tread the decks of one of the world’s biggest battleships, a vessel that was a favorite of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s and fitted with his own presidential bathtub. In 1943, the ship carried Roosevelt to Casablanca en route to the Tehran Conference.
The decision shocked the Iowa’s supporters, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, who helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001. However, boosters of Stockton were elated.
“San Francisco has so many tourist attractions that the Iowa could get lost in all the noise,” said Gordon Palmer, Stockton’s deputy city manager. “But here in Stockton, the Iowa is the noise. People up here are really excited about it.”
To secure the Iowa, Stockton has offered a mile-long dock in the city’s busy port on the San Joaquin River, a 90,000-square-foot waterfront building and a 15-acre parking area – all free of charge.
San Francisco offered nothing.
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