Sylvia McLaughlin, a local housewife turned environmental activist, was alarmed enough by the situation to recruit friends and associates to form the non-profit Save San Francisco Bay Association, later renamed as Save the Bay. The newly-formed association leaped into action, forming a shoreline park committee that began discussing how to raise funds for a small park in Berkeley in 1963. However, Save the Bay leaders soon realized that halting the dumping of material into the bay was a more urgent problem. In 1969 the state's Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) went from being an interim agency to a permanent state planning and regulatory entity. BCDC backed the idea that the state park system should buy the land. However California State Parks, which had little experience managing urban land and little interest in the complicated challenges of this particular polluted parcel, showed no interest in taking on the property. EBRPD, which was already operating eight urban shoreline parks, thought Cal Parks should be the lead agency. Furthermore, Santa Fe's owners felt certain that their property would become much more valuable if it remained in their hands.