Susan Hirsch, who directs the foundation, denies that the Fishers have any financial interest in firms that might work on the Beach Chalet project, or that have worked on any of the eight artificial turf projects previously built by the city’s parks department.

Of course, every city has cranks with strong views about parks; it’s a common enough phenomenon to be the premise for a network sitcom. (“ 'Parks and Recreation’ is exactly like my job,” said Mr. Ginsburg, referring to the TV comedy. “Except in that I am Amy Poehler and not Ron Swanson.”)

But not every city provides its residents with such easy access to the ballot. Beach Chalet opponents have raised less than $50,000 for their referendum campaign, but that was more than enough to force the vote and add months of delay. And theirs is far from the silliest question to make it on San Francisco’s ballot. In 2008, voters considered whether to name the city’s sewage treatment plant after George W. Bush, as a political statement that he was full of, well, sewage.

That measure failed, but sometimes the silly questions pass. In 1993, Bob Geary, a police officer, was upset about orders from S.F.P.D. brass to stop using his ventriloquist dummy while on patrol. So he collected signatures and got a question on that year’s ballot: “Shall it be the policy of the people of San Francisco to allow Police Officer Bob Geary to decide when he may use his puppet Brendan O’Smarty while on duty?” It passed with 51 percent of the vote.

“What we struggle with in San Francisco is saying ‘We had the process, you had your voice, you didn’t get your way on this specific issue, but we’re moving forward,’ ” says Mr. Wiener. “If it takes this long and this many millions of dollars to get a straightforward soccer field project through, you can understand why it’s taken over 10 years for us to get our first bus rapid transit project done.”

City voters’ propensity to say “yes” may be why five members of the board of supervisors, including Mr. Wiener, decided to refer Proposition I to the ballot instead of simply opposing Proposition H. An internal poll provided to The New York Times by Let SF Kids Play (the pro-turf campaign) showed both questions leading, but Proposition I leading by a wider margin. That’s not surprising, since both questions offer something that sounds nice at first pass: Real grass for H, more play hours for I. If both proposals pass, whichever one gets more votes will take precedence.

Ms. Barish has other ideas. “The environmental impact report is just dead wrong, and it’s now being litigated,” she told me, referring to an appeal of the superior court decision in favor of the city. “Even if we lose, we still think we have a right to fight this in court.”