While I opposed the sale of the park for several reasons, as a professor of political science, I am particularly concerned with the political process used to sell the park. The political process is often more important than the actual choice made because the process generates the choices one can make. Sometimes this is called agenda control.
In politics, the most important steps of a process are the first step and the last step. (In business, these are called the first-mover advantage and the last-mover advantage.