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Public To Weigh In On America's Cup Infrastructure

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)- San Francisco is getting ready to begin the environmental review process to bring the America's Cup to San Francisco. It will include plenty of opportunity for the public to comment about how the event might impact the area.

KCBS' Barbara Taylor Reports:

To accomplish the feat of getting the city ready to go by 2012 is a mammoth undertaking. This week a key, and often lengthy, part of the process begins with the environmental review. Project Director Mike Martin said the public will have many opportunities to weigh in and make suggestions.

"What we have today is a notice of preparation of an EIR that contains a project description that starts moving towards bringing that into focus," said Martin. "We're really going to start identifying the dates, the activities and the types of improvements that people will see."

Craig Thompson, CEO of the America's Cup, said that with the hosting of the regatta in San Francisco comes a whole new era.

"For the first time in the history of the America's Cup we're going to have hundreds of thousands of people watching this in the Bay Area. They'll be very close up too, for example, at Chrissy Field, on the Marin Headlands and all over the bay. It's a true, natural amphitheater, which has never been possible before," said Thompson.

Public hearings have already been scheduled. The first is at San Francisco City Hall on February 23rd.

(© 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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