A misguided disaster struck People’s Park and many trees dear to us were chopped down, killed. We will continue to revitalize the park with resources anyone can contribute.
The dryness in summer is hurting trees, bushes, community gardens with flowers, herbs and vegetables, and happens when UC keeps the water turned off. Park gardeners do what they can in transporting water bucket by bucket. Please contact us if you are able to help out. Every bucket makes a difference, and it can be a great group activity if you get your friends together to do a bucket brigade. Send us photos to post when you do this!
Michael Delacour visioning the future of People’s Park — photo: Nacio Jan BrownMichael Delacour circa 1970 — photo: Nacio Jan BrownMichael Delacour speaks at a student organization gathering at People’s Park – photo: Harold AdlerMichael Delacour and friends at People’s Park – photo: Harold AdlerMichael Delacour speaking to students at People’s ParkMichael Delacour talking with police officer in People’s ParkGina and Dusk DelacourGina dancing with cat in arms in the sunshine at a People’s Park eventMichael Delacour and Gina at People’s Park eventPeople’s Park gathering on the sunny lawn for music and speakersWave Gravy clowning around at People’s Park eventMichael Delacour and Matt at Free Box construction in People’s ParkMichael Delacour and Charles Gary at Free Box construction in People’s ParkMichael Delacour at Free Box construction at People’s Park
It is with great sadness that we’re sharing the news that Michael Delacour, one of the founders of People’s Park, died Thursday, March 9, 2023.
From Odile Hugonot Haber, who lived with Michael for 6-1/2 years in the 1980s, and who shared some pre-People’s Park history:
Michael Delacour was born in San Diego. His mother I think was born in England.
Maybe her father, Michael’s grandfather lived on the cliff of San Diego in a big house.
He was a Professor of art, maybe had been involved in prints. He had been brought from England by the University of San Diego.
His mother Jean maybe, married his father, maybe a student then. He had bought a fishing boat. He loved fishing in the sea, and they lived on money inherited from the grandfather. Michael remembered going on his boat with him. His father died of a heart attack and his mother was a widow, with 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls.
Michael was recruited or sent to the national guard as a youth. Then he told me that he worked in a giant Naval factory in San Diego that built missiles. He thought it was amazing how many people worked there together in this giant workplace. He learned working there with other people. He got married very young to Leslie and they had 3 children Kathy, Vanessa and David.
When his work sent him to work elsewhere, his wife left him, and met a German man.
Michael was heartbroken and got very depressed and took care of his 3 children.
He was depressed and they gave him shock treatment therapy. It was very hard for him.
Then he went to Berkeley just when the anti-war movement got started. He became a boiler maker and was very active in the boilermaker union. He got active in the antiwar Vietnam peace movement and when the Free Speech movement started moving to People’s Park. He got involved with the Park. He had an important role in the creation of the People’s Park.
For most of his life he watched People’s Park and was very active in it. He was generally very active politically and once he ran to be mayor of Berkeley. He had a different slogan posted high on telephone polls, they were silk screen or painted.
He was part of the Rank and File coalition and wrote articles in the Rank and File’s news,
Michael always regretted his lack of education and felt slighted by it. Michael believed in direct action and was good at it.
From Max Ventura:
Michael and I met as part of Campaign Against Apartheid, which intersected a lot with the park and the larger movement, and Odile and Michael and I were part of the Homeless Direct Action Collective (HDAC, pronounced headache), a true headache for the politicians in town. Based in the park, we did two occupations of Provo Park, what now is referred to as Civic Center Park: Loniville, and Loniville 2 to demand the City help those on the streets. Yup.. back in the mid-80’s. Getting no action via the city, we took to squatting houses which had been vacant for years, some 10-15. Many privately owned.. land speculation… but many city-owned. Michael, with all his skills, got water and electricity going. We used to joke that we had luxury squats. He also brokered an arrangement with one of our large squats, 2 units, so that it was able to be a squat fairly longterm. While many of our squats were very public to press the political choices politicians were making, we all and Michael also supported quiet squats, to simply allow people indoor shelter. Michael always related not only to the working class, but the most vulnerable in our society, and always was ready to go, chomping at the bit, to take direct action to make a society for all.
Michael was struck by how all those workers in the missile factory worked together as a team, in that case to help facilitate death, but he took that knowledge of the power of working together and recast it as part of the anti-war movement, and the building of People’s Park. If he’s looking down now, he’d probably be yelling at us all as we write about him, calling us elitists because we can write. How many times he yelled that at me when he wasn’t asking me to write something and then when I reminded him I have exactly zero plumbing or electrical or mechanical skills which he used all the time in the movement, he’d nod. Often, the next moment he’d be chuckling, glad to be recognized for his invaluable skills and work. Only a couple years ago when there was water backing up in pipes to the park, he was out there leading a few of us in trying to pinpoint the source of the issue. Always hands-on. “Everyone Gets a Blister!”
Michael was about DOing, not just talking, and that is, perhaps, his most important legacy. People’s Park is his legacy. People around the world are inspired by it. We look forward to our celebrating him further April 23rd at our 54th anniversary!
From Isis Feral:
I met Michael when I was a teenager in the Campaign Against Apartheid in the mid-1980s. Another example of Michael fighting on behalf of the oppressed was more recently when, together with his late wife Gina, he joined my dad and me in court to advocate for the release of one of our family members, who had been incarcerated in a psychiatric institution, where she was being forcibly drugged, and threatened with conservatorship. Thanks to their determined solidarity, we were able to bring her home that day.
From Lisa Teague:
This 2018 article by Tom Dalzell has a lot of old photos and information about Delacour family history, as well as Park history:
We dedicate this year’s People’s Park 54th Anniversary to Michael Delacour as a celebration of his life and work.
Michael Delacour Presente!
Help Dusk Delacour, Michael Delacour’s son with a contribution
A GoFundMe account has been created to help pay for the costs of Michael Delacour’s cremation, memorial and to help his son, Dusk, to get set up in a new location. Please give what you can and help spread the word. In this way, may we honor our comrades and each other. https://gofund.me/dfff700c
This 2018 article by Tom Dalzell has a lot of old photos and information about Delacour family history, as well as Park history.
The Appeals Court issued their final decision today. We won the most important point in the case for the continuation of the Park. The court’s order, attached below, finds that UC’s Environmental Impact Report did not adequately analyze feasible alternative sites for Housing Project #2. Therefore, as stated in the Disposition on page 44, our claim that UC needs to look more carefully at other places to build Housing Project #2 is upheld and the case goes back to the trial court. Our current understanding is that the trial court (judge Roesch) will give instructions to UC as to how it can comply with this appeals court decision. In later days we will get a fuller understanding of what those instructions will look like. One possibility could be that UC will write another EIR with a more complete analysis of other places to build. Most importantly no construction can take place at People’s Park now or until this decision is final. After this is final either side can take additional legal steps that will delay construction even further. Because we are all interested in the timeline of future developments I include the information below from the lawyer.
Upcoming deadlines:
Last day to file Petition for Rehearing in Court of Appeal: 3/13/23
Opinion Final: 3/26/23
Last day to file Petition for Review in Supreme Court: 4/5/23
On January 12, 2023 the Court of Appeal heard Oral Arguments on the CEQA case of Make UC a Good Neighbor and People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group VS the Regents of the University of California. There were not any points in the arguments of either side that were different than the briefs and supporting letters that had previously been submitted by the parties. The attorney/justices interaction was very interesting. The entire 82 minute hearing is at:
For us interested in preserving People’s Park as an open space in perpetuity the hearing is very reassuring. The UC lawyer tried to gain traction for their contention that the “revitalization” (read destruction) of the park was always the core goal of Housing Project #2 and therefore the Environmental Impact Report had no obligation to analyze other alternate sites for that housing because only by building on People’s Park could the project revitalize the park. Justice Burns was especially unaccepting of this claim and interrupted and contradicted their lawyer continuously. In short, it would be very surprising if we don’t win on the alternative site issue, which would mean the EIR has to be redone.
The other meaningful exchange was about the issue of noise. Our contention that Housing Project #2 would have a significant negative impact on noise levels in the neighborhood because of the common occurrence of student parties is being critiqued as a “social” impact as opposed to an environmental impact. UC claims that the burden of predicting, analyzing and mitigating for these kinds of social noise is discriminatory and that it will delay or stop new building projects. Even the Chief Justice Terri Jackson asked about the possibility of a new building for a church being made to analyze the effect of tambourine shaking.
Our lawyer made the point that noise is noise. He also made the point that the fair argument standard should be applied. Finally he noted that anti-discrimination law is an established means by which any environmental impact can be evaluated.
This question of whether social impacts should be included in CEQA suits is complex and can be looked at from many angles. It seem to be the way developers and their political allies are going to attempt to weaken or throw out CEQA.
On PROGRESS (or lack thereof) in the Matter of MAKE UC A GOOD NEIGHBOR, PEOPLE’S PARK HISTORICAL DISTRICT ADVOCACY GROUP, and PEOPLE’S PARK COUNCIL vs. BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL, MAYOR JESSE ARREGUIN, CITY OF BERKELEY, and REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA d.b.a. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG21105966:
Our lawsuit on behalf of three (3) People’s Park groups commenced over a year ago, August 2, 2021, as a Petition for Writ of Mandate against the Berkeley City Council and Mayor for violation of the California open-meeting law (the Ralph M. Brown Act) and for violation of certain laws, including Berkeley Measure L and Measure N (true copies of which are attached to this email message).
The case, originally a Petition against the City Defendants, has now morphed essentially into a Complaint for Breach of Contract against the University of California (“UC”).
Under the purview of Hon. Frank Roesch, an Alameda Superior Court judge, People’s Park’s pleadings have now been amended four (4) times in response to demurrers and other motions designed to defeat the people’s efforts to challenge the Berkeley City Council and Mayor’s secret agreement with UC, a deal by which the City corruptly colluded with UC to sell out the public interest in controlling overcrowding, in receiving equitable compensation for City services, in maintaining low-income housing, and in preserving parks and open space within the City limits, most notably, People’s Park.
On behalf of People’s Park Council and the two other non-profit community groups, I filed the 4th Amended Petition and Complaint on November 17, 2022, and directed a copy to David M. Robinson, Chief Campus Counsel for UC Berkeley. I then appeared before Judge Frank Roesch the following morning in a Zoom hearing for Case Management and Compliance. The next Case Management Conference is set for February 3, 2023, at 9:00 a.m. in Dept. 17.
The current incarnation of this People’s Park lawsuit, namely the 4th Amended Petition and Complaint, largely consists of an action against the Regents of the University of California (UC) alleging breach of contact. Specifically, UC breached multiple agreements with People’s Park Council and with the founding Park gardening group, People’s Park Project/ Native Plant Forum, agreements that date back as far as 1978 and 1979.
At least two (2) of these agreements were written and signed by representatives for People’s Park and the UC Berkeley campus administration, the Letter of Agreement dated May 8, 1978, and the Letter of Understanding, dated January 5, 1979. Some of the other agreements, both written and verbal, expressed and implied, were described in an open letter dated August 31, 1979, from Associate Vice Chancellor T. E. “Ted” Chenoweth to his boss, Vice Chancellor R. F. “Bob” Kerley. True copies of all three (3) contractual “Letters” are attached to this email message.
UC had systematically breached its solemn agreements with People’s Park organizations for many years, even before the most recent wanton and tragic acts of destruction, especially those wrought last summer, 2022. We will pursue the ongoing action for breach of contract, as well as planning to claim property damages in a separate proceeding.
Breach of contract may not be a crime, it’s true, but destruction of property and vandalism ARE indeed crimes. UC has wantonly and brazenly acted to destroy People’s Park, harming and killing trees, shrubs, wildlife habitat, and many other landscape features, including damage to the ramp for the People’s Stage.
These living items belong to the people, by and through the People’s Park organizations and volunteers who created them, bought and paid for them, installed and planted them. These items were and are NOT the property of UC or the Campus Administration. The People’s Park agreements that UC has violated are proof of UC’s knowledge, intent, and malice that underlie their recent wave of senseless damage, destruction, and desecration.
UC has willfully stifled and vandalized the fruits of our creativity. UC has also heartlessly employed unfortunate social ills and challenges, such as homelessness and drug use, as a cynical weapon to discredit and defame People’s Park and the Park community, blaming the victim for the very problems of neglect that UC has fostered and focussed upon the sacred ground of People’s Park.
With unity, persistence and love, we can hold UC accountable for these wrongs, and commence the process of transforming the Berkeley campus administration from a purveyor of public corruption and higher ignorance, into an institution of higher learning and public cooperation.
The Future of People’s Park panel discussion was presented online by the People’s Park Historic Advocacy Group with Berkeley community members on February 26, 2021. Here’s a video of the discussion, archived on the People’s Park YouTube channel.
Presenters:
Harvey Smith – author of “Berkeley and the New Deal”, People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group (event host)
Tom Dalzell – author of “The Battle for People’s Park Berkeley 1969”, “Quirky Berkeley” series, union leader, lawyer
Steve Wasserman – Participant and Activist during 1969, publisher of Heyday Books, career in publishing, editing and writing
Maxina Ventura – member of People’s Park Council (formerly Committee), Homeopath, environmental activist
Aidan Hill – Former Berkeley Mayoral Candidate, UCB Student/Graduate, candidate for District 7
Joe Liesner – long-time People’s Park activist, Food Not Bombs volunteer
Participants:
Joseph Copeland – raised near People’s Park, son of “People‘s Park” author Alan Copeland
Chuck Wollenberg – People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, Berkeley historian
David L. Axelrod – attorney at law, Sierra Law Office
UC Berkeley plans to build a high rise on People’s Park, which would destroy the historic and cultural legacy and an irreplaceable natural environment, has brought together writers, historians, students and park activists to oppose this ill-considered project.
Presenters share the historic background of the park, give details on the effort to recognize its national landmark status (**formally received this status May 2022), and share plans for revitalizing this invaluable public green, open space.
We suggest UC Berkeley commence construction of the student and supportive housing planned for the park on an alternate site as soon as possible.
By Shirley Dean and Gus Newport Jan. 10, 2023, 8:01 a.m.
Although UC Berkeley has stated it wants to build 8,000 student housing beds as soon as possible, the university has picked a site, knowing it would be vigorously opposed, and now has caused months of delay. We suggest it commence construction of the student and supportive housing planned for People’s Park on an alternate site as soon as possible. Indeed, UCB has identified up to 15 alternative sites.
The National Register of Historic Places has recognized the value of People’s Park. The park has an over half-century legacy of cultural events; town, gown and political events; a biosystem of flora and fauna; a surround of highly significant architecture; and a role as an everyday community recreation site.
UC has been defeated in the courts in many of the California Environmental Quality Act challenges to its campus development plans. These court decisions have made it clear that UCB is not doing an adequate job of identifying and mitigating the impacts of its development in Berkeley.
Additionally, UC’s reckless demolition of most of the historic trees in People’s Park on Aug. 3 has threatened a key element of the HUD funding for the supportive housing portion of the project due to the lack of agreement to do the required federal environmental review, thus putting that project in jeopardy.
UCB’s almost 50% increase in enrollment (almost 15,000 students) means that the Southside of Berkeley desperately needs the open space of People’s Park. Based on the city’s recent population growth, concentrated in the areas nearest the campus, and the city’s standard of 2 acres of park and open space per 1,000 residents, the Southside neighborhoods need approximately 18 acres of new, accessible open space.
City planners agree increasingly dense urban areas need more parks, not fewer. Furthermore, the park is needed as a shelter during earthquakes, fires and pandemics – Berkeley will face them all again.
Now is the time to develop a feasible plan of action based on cooperation between the state, the University of California and Berkeley residents who host its flagship campus.
The park’s future should include proper maintenance, user development, and interpretation to provide Berkeley residents and visitors with information on all aspects of People’s Park — Berkeley’s incredible architectural legacy and the political and cultural history of activism on the Southside. Like other parks, it should become a welcoming recreation resource for anyone in the community – housed or unhoused city residents, students, and visitors of all backgrounds and income levels.
Both the city of Berkeley and UC Berkeley celebrate the Free Speech and Sixties history of the Telegraph Avenue corridor. It is an asset to the city and the university and draws visitors from around the globe to Berkeley. Preserving and enhancing the park can only add to its value as a treasured Berkeley attraction.
With the park’s permanence assured, its future could evolve in collaboration with the People’s Park Council, the long-standing consensus-based group of stewards and advocates for the park, with California Indian tribes, and with a land trust or conservancy. Financing for this vision could be through federal or state funds for parks.
Whatever future model is adopted for People’s Park, it is clear that the plan to destroy the park and the possibility of continuing conflict between park users and the university are neither desirable nor inevitable. Community members can develop a partnership with an enlightened public agency to preserve and enhance People’s Park in a way that honors its culture and heritage and provides valuable open space for the Southside neighborhood. With goodwill and hard work, this future is possible.
Shirley Dean and Gus Newport are former mayors of the city of Berkeley.
This aerial photo shows the Eastside urban forest of trees in People’s Park BEFORE the trees were attacked by UC Berkeley. April 2018This aerial photo shows the Eastside urban forest of trees in People’s Park AFTER the trees were attacked by UC Berkeley. 2019
Make UC A Good Neighbor and the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group (PPHDAG) filed their joint opening brief to the appellate court this week against UC Berkeley under the California Environmental Quality Act challenging UC’s Long Range Development Plan and construction of housing on People’s Park.
The appeal focuses on UC’s failure to analyze in its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) a lower-enrollment alternative or any alternative locations for the housing proposed at People’s Park. The lower-enrollment issue is similar to that at UC Santa Barbara, where the City of Goleta and Santa Barbara County have both sued the university for not complying with an agreement to build enough housing to keep up with its expanding student population. With the alternative location issue, UC is required to adequately assess alternative sites for student housing, which it has not done.
UC has twenty days to reply to our appeal brief. However, be assured UC Berkeley will continue its cynical and misleading public relations campaign on Housing Project #2 (People’s Park) belied by UC’s own planning documents. The goal is building 8,000 new student beds. However, UCB’s own Draft EIR includes a chart listing sixteen possible construction sites and proposed new beds provided by them. They total 13,566. The 1,100 hundred beds at the People’s Park site could easily be accommodated at these other sites.
The prime alternative site is just over a block away at the UC-owned Ellsworth Parking Structure, which UC says can provide up to 2,980 beds. Preserve a parking lot over a park’s much-needed urban recreational space? Why in the midst of extreme climate change must the trees and birds be part of a sacrifice zone? Urban planners agree that overcrowded urban areas like the Southside require more urban parks, not less, to promote human health and wellness and are needed in a time of drought, wildfires, pandemics and pending earthquakes.
Despite UCB’s claims of support, its student survey has been negatively critiqued in the Daily Cal, which has also written many well-researched articles and editorials denouncing the destruction of the park. Students were the primary participants in the recent effort to stop the fencing off the park. The Berkeley Faculty Association is also a critic of the plan to build on People’s Park.
UCB has described the housing crisis as “dire” and “acute.” We all realize that more affordable housing is needed, but most new housing is market rate and beyond the means of most students and the community. The crisis, however, can hardly be described as “acute” by UC Berkeley when it has known about its low ratio of housing per student for well over a half-century.
Campus messages portraying People’s Park as an area of frequent crime on the Southside is quickly countered by facts. A review of data from the Crimemapping website over a six-month period from January through June, 2022 for a 20-block area surrounding the park revealed that 94% of crime occurred outside of People’s Park. Crimes do occur there, but at a lower rate than the surrounding neighborhood. Keep in mind that the promoter of the image of the park as “crime-ridden” is the same institution that was fined $2.35 million in 2020 for underreporting campus crime.
The Chancellor’s message to the campus at the beginning of the semester was noteworthy in that it made absolutely no mention of People’s Park being added to the National Register of Historic Places. The value of the park as a cultural and historic site is beyond Berkeley, beyond California. It is nationally recognized and sought out by visitors from all over the world.
Now is the time for UC Berkeley to stop the delay in student housing construction by moving Project #2 to an appropriate location and to work with the community to make People’s Park a park that all can be proud of. The world is watching.
