We need MORE, not less, open, green space in Southside!
According to Alameda County records, UC has acres of land all over Berkeley and the Bay Area, including south of campus
Come and share your visions for how to make these essential parks open and usable by everyone. Join us! Please attend an important community meeting to discuss these issues!
March 30, 2022 at 7 p.m. Seventh Day Adventist Church, 2236 Parker St., Berkeley
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Author coming to speak at UC Berkeley in April: Davarian Baldwin, author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities, will be speaking at a public event
April 18, 2022 from 5-7 p.m. Social Sciences Matrix, 820 Social Sciences Building, UCB
**** And come celebrate with us for our People’s Park 53rd Anniversary Weekend April 23 and 24th. Concerts noon, on each day, and celebrate the Berkeley Student Co-ops also under threats from UC. Music, food, speakers, festivities, and workshops the 24th (check out peoplespark.org for more details closer to the time)
Imagine the beauty of the sun on sparkling water of Derby Creek running through a wooded glade in People’s Park. This can become reality as we all get involved in caring for our precious open space in Berkeley.
Derby Creek in People’s Park color mapDerby Creek in People’s Park pencil sketch
This very detailed and informative report looks the process of daylighting Derby Creek in People’s Park, restoring a beautiful riparian Berkeley habitat with native plants and flowing water and the restorative power of nature in our neighborhood and town.
Report to the University of California and the People’s Park Community Advisory Board on the Feasibility of Restoring Derby Creek at People’s Park, Berkeley, California
The city didn’t even bring in porta potties until I believe it was July and their handwashing stations, not only at People’s Park, but at Civic Center Park, most often have no water or soap, or paper towels. The city never brought in Sharps containers, and in their recent propaganda, UC refers back to there being a Sharps slot at the bathrooms, but during 2020 the bathrooms often were not opened until later in the day, and sometimes not at all, and no one was in the office so there was no way for the container to be checked or replaced. The Berkeley Free Clinic provided Sharps containers that were placed in the porta potties loose in spite of our calls for the city to strap them onto the outsides to increase the probability that more people would use them.
Months ago, the porta potties were moved to Dwight Way so now users, if they don’t see Sharps containers in the porta potties will 1) throw on the floor of the porta potties; 2) throw needles into the toilet making it hard for upkeep; 3) throw them on the ground outside. Do we think a user is going to walk across the park to place needles into the slot at the bathrooms? I don’t.
So the city and UC have had plenty of information shared by me on behalf of the group, and Sheila who spread information widely.
In this video, I went into detail about how the sinks, certainly, are inaccessible, but the lack of any reasonable upkeep of the bathrooms over the years makes using the bathrooms actually not truly accessible for people in wheelchairs or using walkers. Most often there is no toilet paper and there certainly are no seat covers. It’s disgusting. Soap? Not for years except when volunteers provide it, and their soap dispensers are too high for accessibility anyway. The hand blow dryer is too high but in reality often is broken down for long periods anyway. Locks on the bathroom stall doors are not able to be used by many with disabilities affecting hand and finger use while there are perfectly well-known options that allow for flipping a handle over.
UC and the city have failed the most vulnerable in the Berkeley, and UC has taken a park which was created for everyone’s benefit and made sure the bathrooms are not accessible to those who may have the most challenging needs in a bathroom setting. This in a city which was central to the beginnings of the Independent Living Movement and the creation of the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act. Shameful.
