open space – Page 2 – People’s Park

December 31, 2023January 2, 2024

Alert to Defend People’s Park – December 30, 2023

The People’s Park Council sent out a text alert today, December 30, at 1:30 pm. It is a “heads up” for imminent attack on People’s Park. (Background info: Several sources have warned the call is out for a large number of police to be at the Park, 5 am, Tuesday January 2.) The People’s Park community refers people to the www.peoplespark.org web site, and also announces a December 31 Noon meeting at People’s Park for all to organize for park defense. Note: Please keep your phone ringer on especially on the night of January 1, 2024.

Text SAVETHEPARK to 41372 — and share this number! If possible, disable your phone’s “Do Not Disturb” for the first week of January to ensure you get nighttime alerts.

December 21, 2023

People’s Park Update – December 2023

Media outlets are reporting that UC Berkeley intends to attack People’s Park in the first week of January 2024. Yes, 16 months after UC’s failed attempt in August of 2022 to fence and destroy the park, they have regrouped and now they are ready to go back on the offensive.

We won’t let them destroy it!

Park defenders are preparing to protect People’s Park once again, as we have successfully done for the past 54 years. While there are still some issues winding their way through the courts, the situation has changed since 2022. State politicians such as Buffy Wicks, Nancy Skinner and Gov. Gavin Newsom have worked to change the law to enable UC Berkeley to ignore environmental law and finish their conquest of People’s Park.

The university will rely on hordes of riot police to do their dirty work. Do not be afraid! Come join us! When it comes to the park, the people have always prevailed — but we can’t do it without you.

Now is the time to prepare and get ready to mobilize. Get supplies together in preparation for a late-night, or early morning, resistance. Tell your friends about the Park and encourage them to join you.

Get connected in the following ways:

Text SAVETHEPARK to 41372 — and share this number! If possible, disable your phone’s “Do Not Disturb” for the first week of January to ensure you get nighttime alerts.
For further updates, text “@pplspark6” to 81010
Come out to the park to meet people and get prepared.
Form Affinity Groups so that you and your friends can engage in creative resistance to help save the park. Diversity of tactics is encouraged!
Please donate to:
People’s Park Council: https://account.venmo.com/u/PeoplesParkCouncil
People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group: https://gofund.me/ae2351ea or http://www.peoplesparkhxdist.org/donate-now/
Visit defendthepark.org and peoplespark.org for info & resources.
Follow us on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/peoplesparkberkeley/

Protecting People’s Park affirms Berkeley’s radical tradition and the park’s place in our hearts and social fabric. It is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as a place of major historic and cultural significance and value, and is home to free daily food servings, basketball, and companionship of plants, animals, and humans.

Let a thousand parks bloom!

People’s Park Council

January 16, 2023

Legal Update on People’s Park – January 12, 2023

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:

https://jcc.granicus.com/player/clip/3368?view_id=41&redirect=true&h=e8920a278fccbe9f40ea13a15f093f12

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.

November 24, 2022

Lawsuit Update, November 22, 2022

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).

Berkeley Measure L and Measure N (PDF)

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.

3 Letters of Agreement – University of California, Berkeley Campus Chancellor’s Office and the People’s Park Project/Native Plant Forum (PDF)

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.

Wishing good luck and a happy holiday to all,

David

DAVID L. AXELROD,
Attorney at Law

Documents:

Berkeley Measure L and Measure N (PDF)

3 Letters of Agreement – University of California, Berkeley Campus Chancellor’s Office and the People’s Park Project/Native Plant Forum (PDF)

November 11, 2022November 11, 2022

The Future of People’s Park: panel discussion, February 26, 2021

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.

Event Transcript (text format)
https://www.peoplespark.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Future-of-Peoples-Park-February-26-2021-Event-Transcript.txt

Event Chat (text format)
https://www.peoplespark.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Future-of-Peoples-Park-February-26-2021-Event-Chat.txt

People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group
https://peoplesparkhxdist.org

People’s Park website
https://peoplespark.org

November 8, 2022January 16, 2023

Opinion: Breaking the impasse on People’s Park

This statement is published at:
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/01/10/opinion-peoples-park-student-housing-alternate-site

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.

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 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/

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.