Just when you thought that SF was absolutely, positively getting rid of that 710-ton some-would-say-eyesore known as Vaillancourt Fountain, a group of preservationists is suing the city to keep the damn thing there.

The Embarcadero Plaza's controversial and brutalist Vaillancourt Fountain dates back to 1971, but seemed effectively dead-to-rights last month when the SF Board of Supervisors rejected a last-chance appeal to save the fountain in a 10-1 vote. And even before that, the SF Rec and Parks Department declared the fountain “hazardous” and fenced it off to the public in June, formally requested the fountain’s removal in August, and the fountain’s technical owners at the SF Arts Commission voted to remove the fountain in early November.    

Vaillancourt Fountain is not slated to be destroyed. It is slated to be disassembled, packed up and put into storage, and maybe some collector would buy the pieces and restore it.  

Or maybe the angry historic preservationsists who have been behind so many attempts to save the fountain can force the city to leave the fountain up? The Chronicle reports that fans of the fountain have sued the city of SF over the city's efforts to remove the fountain, in a lawsuit filed Friday in SF Superior Court.

The plaintiffs are calling themselves Friends of the Plaza, and they’re represented by attorney Susan Brandt-Hawley, who’s fresh off unsuccessfully arguing the appeal to save the fountain before the supervisors last month.

The gist of their argument is that SF City Hall has failed to comply with the age-old NIMBY legal appeal tactic known as CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), in that the city never wrote a proper environmental impact report (EIR) before deciding to get rid of the fountain.

The full text of the lawsuit claims that the city “has failed to take feasible steps to avoid potential harm to the public or property over time.” The suit also claims that the city “refuses to consider feasible ways to protect the fountain and the public by adequate site security or to consider reasonable methods to study the fountain condition.”

The city argues that the fountain is simply an old wreck and just plain not safe anymore.

“The structural deterioration of the Vaillancourt Fountain poses a significant safety hazard to the public, and the Planning Department’s California Environmental Quality Act determination allows the city to protect residents and visitors by disassembling and safely storing the fountain,” City Attorney David Chiu’s office said in a statement to the Chronicle. “We will review the lawsuit and respond in court.”

So it’s another hail-mary attempt to save the Vaillancourt Fountain, and it's from the same batch of people behind every previous unsuccessful attempt to save the fountain. Though this time, they’re also asking for “reasonable costs, expenses, and attorney fees.”

Related: Supervisors OK Taking a Wrecking Ball to Vaillancourt Fountain, Rejecting Last-Chance Appeal [SFist]

Image: 9yz via Wikimedia Commons