Berkeley Parks – Page 3 – People’s Park

September 11, 2022September 11, 2022

Appeal Filed to Preserve People’s Park!

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.

We’ve said it before, but this excellent legal work needs to be supported. Please refer any and all to our DONATE NOW! page at http://www.peoplesparkhxdist.org/donate-now/

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.

— Harvey Smith, People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group
http://www.peoplesparkhxdist.org/donate-now/

September 3, 2022September 11, 2022

People’s Park Gift, a huge collaborative art project in the park, Saturday, September 3, 2022

Photo: Evelyn Sinclair. (more photos below)

UC used a backhoe as a weapon of destruction in the recent massacre at People’s Park. We wrapped it up as a gift to give back to UC. Art seminar 10 am, art workshop 11 am – 3 pm, and permanent exhibit opening at 4 pm.

Video of the UCpocrisy art collaboration with the People’s Park community in Berkeley

UCpocrisy – art project in collaboration with artist 233 – before and after

In the artist’s own words:

Saturday, September 3, 2022, exactly a month after the terrible events occurred at People’s Park, the community of People’s Park is going to wrap up a special gift back to the UC Berkeley administration. We don’t want it! Spaniard artist 233 (2amon 3lanco-3arrera) is leading an art project fruit of collective thought, sharing and work, promoted by People’s Park Council and supported by the whole community of People’s Park. The idea is to contribute through contemporary art with People’s Park’s struggle against the powerful unfair capitalist establishment in which every human being coexist.

233 is the artist name of Ramon Blanco-Barrera, a Ph.D. with a specialization in large-scale installations to raise awareness on human rights concepts and values. He is also a Faculty Member at the University of Seville, Spain. He teaches new media-based courses and his art practice and research explore social and political issues all over the world. More specifically, his work tries to send inspiring messages in order to engage and make people reflect about their lives and communities, both local and universal, trans-creating with people and using the number ‘233’ in reference to the ‘identity game’ of our current overpopulated world system.

From Lloyd Roble-Nebres, Filipino-American writer:

There are gifts... and then there are Gifts.

One is transcendent, in its simple and elemental purity: I give this to you, with no
strings or ribbons attached. Take it: for I love and cherish you.

The other is transgressive: I give it to you, wrapped in these blue and gold colors
of history and hypocrisy. Take it: for I question and challenge you.

It's this latter type that is Ramon Blanco-Barrera’s vision of the Gift
that the People's Park community is giving back to the
university.

Wrapped in fields of blue tarp, be-ribboned in the colors of the University, it
immediately draws the eye to the center of the park, where the now-cloaked giant
backhoe sits — something of a Trojan horse. But it's a horse containing not hidden,
marauding, Greeks... but instead provocative ideas and simmering sentiments.

It's an almost alien construct, something clearly not belonging to the park — but
the now-enwrapped object of which was moved there by the institution, to start
its decades-planned divestiture. One to erase an open, green space into a
residential campus — itself already surrounded by blocks and blocks of housing,
office buildings, retail establishments.

So there this gift-wrapped object sits, presented by the active spirits and People of the park to the University, in a gesture saying: we give this right back to you... it is not wanted.

Drawing the eye with its sharply-imagined visual and graphic contradictions
posed in a stark and startling way, the People’s Park Gift announces its brazen
defiance: it is the anti-gift, a vivid blue and gold manifesto of resistance, a
statement that cannot be missed.

~ an observer

Photos: Evelyn Sinclair

WEEKEND EVENTS:

DISORIENTATION WEEKEND at People’s Park!
Discover the park – get involved – meet students and community members!

SATURDAY September 3
10 am: Huge art project in the park.
Come help wrap a massive gift for UC!! And help place our own National Register plaque.
5–8 pm: FREE CONCERT!!!
A night of Vibes, Hip-Hop and Neo-Soul!
Featuring Cas’ti, Oddity, Kahj & Versa‚m

SUNDAY September 4
Non-Violent Direct Action Training 10:30 am – 6 pm
A day long prep session for taking action to defend the park
Contact: weddress777@gmail.com

Save People’s Park!!! defendthepark.org IG @peoplesparkberkeley

Text SAVETHEPARK to 74121 to join the bulldozer alarm text alert

Let 1000 Parks Bloom!

August 28, 2022

Memorial Tree Planting in the Park for our friend & comrade Dickie Haskell, Sunday, August 28, 2022

Memorial Tree Planting in the Park for our friend and comrade Dickie Haskill Sunday:

Aug 28th on the Dwight Street side.

10 AM: meet up and preparations

11 AM: Circle up and planting

Bring a photo, a story, art, food, a song to share, and/or just your lovely self ready to create a little area where folx can be and remember our dear friend. We have a peach tree donated. Other seeds, plants, art, etc most welcome to bring!

We can send notes, art, pics to his mother. We can record stories for his brother which can be e-mailed. There will be a Memorial in around a week in Virginia. We can have a lil’ gathering of local friends.

We “Lovin You” Dickie!!!

💜Elisa

PS: This is improv, no structure to it. Maybe just go around the circle, anyone sharing what they wish. Holla if U wanna collab, have ideas, visions. Thank U!

August 19, 2022September 11, 2022

Response to Chancellor Carol T. Christ’s August 15 message to students about People’s Park

In the dead of night, UC moved on the park — barricading city streets, blocking access to sidewalks, and fencing the park. Protected by riot police, heavy equipment was brought in. Peaceful protesters sat in front of that equipment to keep the park open and prevent further deforestation of the trees, which UC last did in 2018. People peacefully demonstrated against the heavy machinery and destruction of the trees. They had already witnessed the changing climate in the park after much of the east side forest was demolished by UC just a few years before. Students — of UC Berkeley, local colleges, and high schools — and other community members, including Berkeley neighbors and former residents of the park were outraged by the violent closure and destruction of this community resource.

The university has presented the project as an all-or-nothing: either people will sleep in squalid conditions on the street, or they will build housing on the park. This is a false dichotomy. The park is a vibrant community center, park and recreation space — one of the few accessible and open to everybody, including the poor who suffer within a rapidly gentrifying East Bay. Hundreds of people use the park daily, gathering to play basketball or music, to share food, and community. None of these resources are preserved in the university’s plans, which would turn our park into a sterile dorm lawn. Maximo Martinez Commons is a courtyard just one block north and similar to the one proposed for People’s Park. When was the last time you or your friends used that space?

We need People’s Park to remain a community-run, user-developed and user-defined park. That is why dozens of community groups — such as the Berkeley Student Cooperative, the largest non-profit provider of affordable student housing in the city — stand with People’s Park in opposition to the university’s plans. Homeless advocacy groups such as Consider The Homeless, Berkeley Outreach Coalition, Suitcase Clinic, Berkeley Free Clinic, Berkeley Copwatch, and others stand in solidarity with the park defense.

The UC Regents actually refused Capital Strategies’ attempt to have a $53 million contingency fund available for crowd control, and unforeseen relocations of new residents, and other circumstances in the demolition of People’s Park. Those millions could instead be spent acquiring land for supportive housing sites right in Berkeley, or adding additional housing on a site recommended by the Chancellor’s Housing Commission. And what about the Ellsworth garage, equally close to campus, which has to be demolished due to earthquake danger? In their survey not long ago, 92% of undergraduates did not rank People’s Park as their top site for housing development. If building housing was the university’s top priority, they could have already begun construction on a different site equally close to campus.

Over decades, the UC has approached the park with malice and destructive intent. In spite of this, people have stewarded the land and grown more gardens, community, and lifelong relationships. For 53 years, every time the fences have gone up, they’ve come down! People’s Park is not just some empty real estate lot. People’s Park remains a user-developed park, open for everyone to gather, host events, or hang out and have lunch. Nothing has changed. Come out and see for yourself. We will rebuild once again. Help repair the park according to your own desires. Re-connect with the land!

— People’s Park Council (PeoplesPark.org)

August 18, 2022September 11, 2022

Osha Neumann on The Visionary Activist Show – “Demand the impossible, defend People’s Park!” August 18, 2022, 2:00 PM on KPFA.org

“Demand the impossible, defend People’s Park!” A rousing exhortation, by Osha Neumann, whom Caroline Casey hosts this hour: The tale of People’s Park in Berkeley – 1969 to now… humming…in ardent pertinence to our plight… Devastation into which flows Community Participation; destruction makes its move again, again – the garden roots and bloom and here we are. Honoring Parks…

Listen live or download the podcast: https://kpfa.org/program/the-visionary-activist-show/

People’s Park destruction by mobsters UC Berkeley and cohorts, in photos

Many types of businesses are involved in the sociopathic mobster destruction of People’s Park in their quest for profits off of students and their families at UC Berkeley : construction, automobile, architecture, parking, restaurants, clothing stores, UC Berkeley staff, faculty, grounds services, and administration, energy, cell phone, and more. Predatory capitalism creates dystopia. Beloved People’s Park, the trees, the beautiful outdoors, the user developed community and cultural gathering place, the community gardens, the performance stage, the grassy field, the urban forest, the basketball court, the picnic tables, a family gathering place, a National Historic Landmark of the free speech movement and anti-war movement, is an open green space, an oasis in the crushing din of automobiles, motorcycles, incessant consumerism, the stupidity of asphalt suffocation, the oversized houses and parking lots.

Photos taken August 16, 2022.

August 13, 2022September 11, 2022

Opinion: Demand the impossible, defend People’s Park

By Osha Neumann, in Berkeleyside
August 12, 2022, 10:46 am

I thought it was hopeless to try to defend People’s Park. But then, on Aug. 3, in the early morning hours, park defenders tore down fences UC Berkeley erected to begin construction on student housing, reoccupied the space and sat in front of the big yellow front loaders and excavators. That evening, they held a rally and as I listened to them speak I realized: They are the ones who will determine what is hopeless and what is not.

Each person who spoke expressed the need to protect open and unpatrolled space, a place for trees to grow large, and for housed and homeless people to gather and share what they have in common. They mourned that they had not been able to prevent the university, in its first act that morning, from cutting down a grove of redwoods, some with trunks 3 feet in diameter. Homeless people, who had sheltered in their shade, spoke of them as friends they had lost.

In the 60s, we had a slogan: “Be realistic, demand the impossible.” Today’s People’s Park defenders are demanding the impossible: That the park’s 2.8 acres be recognized as “commons,” a space that no one owns or controls. That was the vision in ’69. That’s their vision now.

Read the full article in Berkeleyside

August 4, 2022August 4, 2022

Tear gas use on peaceful protesters is STILL immoral!

From: Terri Compost, August 3, 2022
Open letter to Berkeley City Council council@cityofberkeley.info

Dear Berkeley Mayor and City Council,

It has come to my attention that you could consider suspending the city’s policy against the use of tear gas, smoke and pepper spray for the duration of the City Council recess. The irresponsibility of putting an action like that in place during a time when the council can not act and respond to the situation is extremely irresponsible if not criminal.

I can only imagine you are considering it under the pressure of your UC controllers to encourage them forward in their attack on People’s Park and the People of Berkeley. The folly of the plan to try to build on People’s Park is evident. It has been an immoral and blatantly classist and racist assault against one of the few refuges in the City in which all people are served. The response of the people should not be a surprise to you. Building on People’s Park is a direct attack against a lot of people, some with nothing to lose. If UC or Berkeley truly wants housing, you will build it elsewhere. There is no scenario where putting a dorm on People’s Park could possibly go smoothly.

Now it’s in your hands. Do you want your legacy to be a bloodbath for this folly? UC creates the problem of scarce housing by admitting unsustainable numbers of students and then pretends to solve the problem they created. Well I’ll let you in on a little secret. People’s Park is a tar baby. The more you attack it the more stuck you will be covered in the tar of the evil of attacking the poor, the environment and our hopes and dreams.

Maybe with enough money, force, police, overtime, added expenditures, fences and ill will the University can cram in something. But it will never rest peacefully there. I suggest you don’t commit to protracted war on the poor of your city. You can not win. You will create more poverty and pain and devastation that will continue to ripple out.

There is a righteous stand to take here. Gus Newport did the right thing when he refused to allow the City of Berkeley Police Department be the ground troops for UC’s bad plan in 1979. The City has prohibited attacking peaceful protesters with chemical weapons for a reason. It is immoral.

History will remember the decisions you make. Peace can be made. A dorm can be built on the Parking Lot of Ellsworth and Channing. But it will take legislators of conscience and intelligence to take leadership and bring our town back to peace.

Please do not put swords into the wannabe overlord’s arsenal to slaughter your city while you are on vacation. Please do the right thing. People’s lives are at stake and you must be responsible now.

Thank you, Terri Compost

Terri Compost is a long-time Berkeley People’s Park community organizer, gardener, educator.

August 4, 2022August 4, 2022

Call In To Berkeley City Council, Thursday August 4, 2022 8:15 PM To Stop Use of Tear Gas, Pepper Spray and Smoke

UPDATE: Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin has canceled tonight’s meeting described below, perhaps he’s getting some spine or he’s just worried about national media attention. He tweeted: “Mtg cancelled. Policy stands and shame on the Sheriff for not guaranteeing mutual aide emergency support to Berkeley because he disagrees with our tear gas ban.”, in a Twitter thread that tagged Berkeleyside and others.

The Berkeley City Manager has requested to allow use of tear gas, smoke and pepper spray while City Council goes on sumer vacation, so the Berkeley City Council just called a Special Meeting for Thursday August 4, 2022 8:15 PM. The one agenda item is:

Discussion and possible action regarding the temporary suspension of the June 9, 2020 policy prohibiting the use of tear gas, smoke and pepper spray for the duration of the City Council recess.

Call in and demand the council does NOT allow this violent City Manager’s wish.

Thursday, August 4, 2022
City Council Special Meeting at 8:15 PM – (8:15 in the evening)

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89083608532
Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free)
Meeting ID: 890 8360 8532

AGENDA: 1. City Manager – Discussion and possible action regarding the temporary suspension of the June 9, 2020 policy prohibiting the use of tear gas, smoke and pepper spray for the duration of the City Council recess.

https://berkeleyca.gov/city-council-special-meeting-eagenda-august-4-2022

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas

This is a transparent attack on the people power that tore down the fence at People’s Park. Please call in and express your thoughts to stop these attacks on people trying to stop the destruction of People’s Park by UC Berkeley.

August 4, 2022September 11, 2022

Legal updates and Letters to Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Nancy Skinner, August 5, 2022

August 5, 2022

The First Appellate court ordered today a temporary stay against all construction, further demolition, tree cutting, and landscape altering activities, unless such landscape alterations are necessary for public health and safety reasons. Their order included that our request for a stay on the erection of a security fence was denied, meaning UC can legally erect a security fence. The court said the temporary order is to give them time to review the petition for writ of supersedeas that our attorney filed yesterday at 1 PM. The temporary stay does not affect or extend to activities at Anchor House. The court also deferred any decision on UC’s request that Make UC a Good Neighbor and People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group post a bond as UC is requesting to cover the increased cost of construction they claim are incurred by this delay. In addition the court ordered that before the parties bring and disputes about the scope of this temporary stay they meet and confer to attempt to resolve such disputes.

August 3, 2022

Our lawyer filed a request for a Writ of Supersedeas at about 1 PM August 3, 2022..

The actual wording is:
Petition for Writ of Supersedeas and request for immediate, temporary stay; Memorandum of Points and Authorities; exhibits filed separately
Immediate, temporary stay requested by 3 PM on August 3, 2022; staying demolition, tree cutting, landscape alteration and construction at People’s Park.

A rally and march was held at Sproul Plaza at 5 PM, August 3, 2022. Details to come.

The university has committed several illegal operations today. Among them are towing the cars legally parked on Haste and Dwight and closing off the streets surrounding the park. The City of Berkeley can not, and did not, relinquish their jurisdiction for those streets to UC. When stopped by an agent (police or security) ask for evidence that they have been granted authority to close the street. When they can offer none you have the right to pass through. Be safe, of course.

Donate: Support the legal actions to save People’s Park with a Venmo or GoFundMe contribution

Letters to Governor Gavin Newsom and Senator Nancy Skinner from Attorney David L. Axelrod

August 3, 2022

To: GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM,
Office of the Governor,
021 O Street, Suite 9000,
Sacramento, CA 95814
Re: DEMAND TO SAVE PEOPLE’S PARK, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

Dear GOV. NEWSOM:

Hello. I need to speak to Gov. GAVIN NEWSOM immediately, in order to seek prompt action for the protection and preservation of PEOPLE’S PARK in Berkeley, California, a designated historic landmark. I spoke with Gov. NEWSOM a few years ago about this issue, in Sonora, California, while he was still Lt. Governor.

The threat of the PARK’S destruction by UC Berkeley administrators, police, agents and contractors is now ongoing and urgent. Native specimen trees are being sawed down and community gardens are being ripped up, even as I speak. Please respond ASAP.

THANK YOU.

DAVID L. AXELROD,
ATTORNEY for PEOPLE’S PARK COUNCIL,
PEOPLE’S PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT ADVOCACY GROUP,
and MAKE UC A GOOD NEIGHBOR
1714 Canyon Terrace Lane, Folsom, California 95630

August 3, 2022

To: Sen. NANCY SKINNER,
Capitol Office,
Sacramento, CA 95814

Re: DEMAND TO SAVE PEOPLE’S PARK, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

Dear Sen. Skinner:
Hello. I need to speak to you immediately, in order to seek prompt action for the protection and preservation of PEOPLE’S PARK in Berkeley, California, a designated historic landmark. I have spoken with you about this issue many times, in Berkeley, California, including during the period while I served as your appointee to the Berkeley Parks & Recreation Commission.
The threat of the PARK’S destruction by UC Berkeley administrators, police, agents and contractors is now ongoing and urgent. Native specimen trees are being sawed down and community gardens are being ripped up, even as I speak. Please respond ASAP.
THANK YOU.

DAVID L. AXELROD,
ATTORNEY for PEOPLE’S PARK COUNCIL,
PEOPLE’S PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT ADVOCACY GROUP,
and MAKE UC A GOOD NEIGHBOR
1714 Canyon Terrace Lane, Folsom, California 95630