There is one more last-gasp, hail mary attempt to save the Embarcadero's crumbling and controversial Vaillancourt Fountain, as preservationists have appealed the decision to remove it to the SF Board of Supervisors. It sure looked like curtains for SF’s Brutalist and debatably unattractive Vaillan court Fountain at the Embarcadero Plaza, after the SF Rec and Parks Department specifically asked that the fountain be removed and put in storage in October, and the SF Arts Commission, which technically owns the fountain, approved its removal in early November. After all, the fountain has been inoperable and closed off to the public over safety hazard risks for more than five months, but maybe more significantly, was not included in the plans for a $30 million renovation of the plaza introduced last year.But supporters of preserving the Vaillancourt Fountain have decided they’re not going to take this laying down. The Chronicle reports that the architectural preservation nonprofit Docomomo US/Northern California has filed an appeal with the SF Board of Supervisors to save Vaillancourt Fountain, and that appeal has been accepted by the board.   That appeal hearing is currently scheduled for Tuesday, January 13, at 2 pm. And it will more than likely drag on for several hours that afternoon.The Arts Commission voted on an “emergency exemption,” which allowed the removal to avoid a full environmental review. Rec and Parks project manager Eoanna Goodwin told the Arts Commission in November that the fountain’s “fencing and mesh screens have been repeatedly breached, and individuals continue to enter the fenced-off area and even sleep within the concrete tubes.”But that said, the emergency exemption effectively acted as a workaround to avoid a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review, as the fountain has been deemed a historic resource that legally should have merited that review.“They are trying to use this emergency exemption for a situation that is not an emergency,” Docomomo board member Jack McCarthy told the Chronicle. “It is decades of deferred maintenance that led to this predictable outcome.”So now the fate of Vaillancourt Fountain will be decided by the 11 sitting members of the SF Board of Supervisors. And we know how the supervisor representing that fountain's district, Danny Sauter, feels about the matter.“I have expressed that I don’t see the path to keeping the fountain here, either a financial path or a path with the design of the new park,” Sauter said to the Chronicle. “There is very little appetite in the District 3 community to see that fountain remain.”He mentions the cost of restoring the fountain, which has been estimated at $30 million. Should it be taken down and not restored, its pieces will be placed into storage, assessed for repair and possible reconstruction, and could be reconstructed elsewhere on the off-chance there’s a taker for this thing, or should the city decide to do so down the line.Related: Vaillancourt Fountain Will Now Likely Be Removed, as SF Arts Commission Approves Taking the Fountain Down [SFist]Image: 9yz via Wikimedia Commons ...read more read less