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Woodchips and Logs Alert: Take Action to Save People’s Park

From the People’s Park Council, June 16, 2022

Hi all,

We need you to call and email about the dramatic fire danger UC has created in the park over the past weeks.

Logs and Woodchips in People’s Park – photo Elana Auerbach

See below for more photos…

They started with many smaller piles of wood chips on the east side, as people were moving to The Rodeway Inn. Eventually those were mostly spread out by park users.

But then UC started dumping piles of wood chips in the grassy areas of the park, dumpload after dumpload, some mounds about 8 feet high and about as wide. Then the logs of formerly healthy, life-giving trees. We’ve had various counts of how many but around 60 or more is a reasonable count for now.

Monday and Tuesday 2 representatives from the City Manager’s office were out aggressively pressuring people to leave the park in the afternoon, including people who do not sleep in the park but hang out there.

Max from the People’s Park Council asked Okeya Vance Dozier how the city was involved in the dumping of flammable materials all over the park. Okeya said it is the UC doing this. So Okeya was asked the purpose of covering the lawn and was told it is to keep people from being able to put out tents. So this clarifies that the city has contact with UC and is being updated, and the city has aggressively pressured people to leave, threatening that they’d lose all their belongings if they did not submit to having them taken away. Indeed, UC has trashed tents and bedding, and personal belongings of many over the weeks. Meanwhile, while UC and the city was pressuring people to go to The Rodeway, telling them they’d have 18 months there, and services, the moment they were there they were being threatened with eviction after 3 months.

Monday and Tuesday this week UC covered many areas with logs. They’re strewn about.

Max has written detailed emails and made calls to different city fire department emails and phone numbers as well as the City Council saying the fire department and city need to stop this massive fire danger, especially as the weather forecast says to expect days with 77 degrees coming up.

The concern is spontaneous combustion and even though activists have been continuing to spread many of the chips from the more recent dumps (June 9, on), there remain massive piles which threaten not only the park and its flora and fauna, but the entire neighborhood as now there are so many wood chips in many areas of the park.

Some immediate actions you can take:

Tell people you know and get it onto Social Media. We’ll try to get some photos of the carnage up onto the website peoplespark.org as soon as that can happen. But people can go and take their own photos and send to people if we don’t get them up right away.

  • Email fire@cityofberkeley.org and call 510-981-3473
  • Email council@cityofberkeley.org
  • Email manager@cityofberkeley.info, and call 510-981-7000 ovance-dozier@cityofberkeley.org and jjacobs@cityofberkeley.org from that office
  • Email chancellor@berkeley.edu and call Carol Christ: 510-642-7464
  • Email regentsoffice@ucop.edu
  • Let us know if you emailed or called… info@peoplespark.org and if you got this info from a friend and would like to be added to our announcements list, please let us know
  • If you use a cell phone, add yourself to the bulldozer alert by texting
    SAVETHEPARK to 74121 and text your friends to do the same
  • Bring out a rake, gloves, a wheelbarrow, and friends to spread more of the wood chips so there is less probability of spontaneous combustion of the massive piles which are left. Make it a party and post photos to your Social Media
  • The evening weather has been so pleasant. Come out to the park and enjoy it. This evening wouldn’t be a moment too soon. Bring your guitar, your singing buddies, and get up on the Free Speech stage to do your thing. Remember Joni Mitchell’s song with the lines, “They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Then there’s the line about putting all the trees in a tree museum (a bit like UC’s claim in the EIR that, they would be moving out oldest, biggest trees. Good luck with that)
  • Now that those trees are dead, sure would be nice if someone with good equipment were to come out and make some of these logs into more benches and tables. Anyone know any wood sculptors who’d want to beautify the park with their art? We’ve also heard rumblings about many uses for the logs in defense of the park

** Our People’s Park tradition, from the inception, has been to take UC’s destruction and heal and support the park and its residents. They destroy, we beautify and think of ways to help do good for the neighborhood from building bathrooms, to getting rid of the offensive volleyball courts to leave the grassy area free for frisbee, picnics, dancing, hula hooping, musical circles. We reused the old-growth redwood UC had used for extra offense in building those unwanted courts, and over years also built picnic tables and benches, have done plumbing repairs when UC has not, have gardened, and as UC has always come in to destroy trees and other plants we respond by planting more and always, we put on anniversary and many other concerts and shows, workshops, rallies, and we help coordinate mutual aid. When we squatted a long-vacant UC-owned brownshingle rooming house across from Rochdale (Berkeley Student Co-op), UC’s response was to bulldoze it. Our response to that? We created another People’s Park annex, a lovely garden which survived at least a year before they demolished that, too.

Let 1000 Parks Bloom!

Keep your eyes and ears open, and we look forward to seeing you in the park.

People’s Park Council

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The Future of Southside Berkeley’s Parks?

Trees • Oxygen • Gardens

Now is the time to maintain nature’s gifts!

  • 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

&&&&

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

peoplespark.org & peoplesparkhxdist.org

**** 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)

Download PDF flyer for these events.

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PRESS RELEASE – Community groups continue fight against secret, illegal agreement between the City of Berkeley and UC Berkeley

For Immediate Release

For Additional Information:
Harvey Smith, peoplesparkhxdist@gmail.com, 510.684.0414

(January 31, 2022) – A coalition of community groups filed a lawsuit to fight the secret, illegal agreement that the City of Berkeley signed with UC Berkeley — giving UC Berkeley a blank check for unfettered growth. The agreement, signed in July 2021, prevents the City of Berkeley from filing any further legal action against UC Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) and withdrew the city’s objection to the destruction of several historic buildings and to the eviction of tenants from their rent controlled homes.

Three community organizations — Make UC a Good Neighbor, People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group (PPHDAG) and People’s Park Council (PPC) — amended their Petition on January 20, 2022 that challenges the City of Berkeley’s agreement with UC Berkeley regarding their LRDP. The Petition alleges the vote on the agreement violates the requirements of the Brown Act, which mandates local government to conduct business at open and public meetings.

“The residents of Berkeley will be saddled with this onerous agreement long after the Mayor, Chancellor, City Council members and Regents are gone from their positions. The basic principles of open government have been shamelessly tossed aside for purposes of political expediency,” according to Harvey Smith, member of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group.

The agreement prevents the city from taking legal action against the LRDP for the next 16 years. Although the city’s own analysis estimated UC Berkeley costs the city $21 million per year, the agreement will pay the city only $4.1 million per year, 20 cents on the dollar. Therefore, over the 16 years Berkeley taxpayers will be responsible for covering a deficit of over $250 million. Three other cities hosting UC campuses have negotiated much more favorable agreements, including the mandatory production of student housing.

The lawsuit cites the action of the Berkeley City Council to conclude “a secret agreement in closed session, never acknowledged, approved or disclosed in public session.” The Petition to the court also cites Measure L, an ordinance passed by Berkeley voters in 1986, which mandates “That wherever public parks and open space currently exist in Berkeley, such use shall continue and be funded at least to allow the maintenance of the present condition and services.” The agreement violates voter-approved Measure L by collaborating in the destruction of People’s Park, a user-developed and community-controlled open space in the South Campus area of Berkeley.

Additionally cited is Measure N, approved by voters in 1988; the secret agreement is described as running “afoul of the intent and aspirational policies set forth in Berkeley Measure N,” which requires the city to “use all available lawful means to ensure that public agencies abide by the rules and laws of the city and that these agencies pay taxes and fees, comparable to those paid by private citizens and business to support their fair share of city services.”

Although the Berkeley City Council had also resolved on multiple occasions to support tenant rights, and specifically the interests of tenants evicted from 1921 Walnut Street, Berkeley, the agreement bound the City “to not challenge the upcoming 2021 LRDP and UC’s Anchor House [1921 Walnut Street] and People’s Park housing projects.”

The lawsuit further stipulates that the City through its agreement with UC will “induce, aid and assist” in destruction of People’s Park as a student and community park and open space and has collaborated in breach of contract by UC Berkeley. “UC has breached its mutual commitments, promises, and written contracts with responsible People’s Park organizations,” which are included in Exhibits A through L of the Petition.

###

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Let’s Stroll Along Derby Creek in People’s Park

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 map
Derby Creek in People’s Park color map
Derby 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

Submitted by: Wolfe Mason Associates, Inc. in association with Waterways Restoration Institute. June 20, 1998
https://peoplespark.org/images/derbycreek1998.pdf
(69 pages, 29 MB, PDF)

Contact People’s Park if you would like to be involved in or want to support this project: e-mail: info@peoplespark.org.

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Bathroom faucets and public health needs an upgrade at People’s Park

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.

–– Maxina Ventura

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People’s Park Nomination for National Historic Landmark, CSHRC, October 29, 2021

Video of the People’s Park Nomination for National Historic Landmark, CSHRC, October 29, 2021

Hearing of the People’s Park nomination for the National Register of Historic Places, by the California State Historical Resources Commission, October 29, 2021

Excerpted from video of full commission meeting, available here:
https://cal-span.org/unipage/index.php?site=cal-span&owner=CSHRC&date=2021-10-29

Short introductions of Commissioners:
Lee Adams III, Chair (Public Member)
Adam Sriro, Vice Chair (Historical Archeology)
Bryan K. Brandes (Public Member)
Alan Hess (Architecture)
Luis Hoyos (Architectural History)
René Vellanoweth (Prehistoric Archeology)
and State Historic Preservation Officer:
Julianne Polanco

Followed by public comment, discussion and unanimous affirmative vote.

The Keeper of the Register is expected to issue final approval of the nomination within 45 days.

The original request for the nomination, with extensive historical context, was submitted to the commission by the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, and can be read here:
https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1067/files/CA_Alameda_Peoples%20Park_DRAFT.pdf

For more information about People’s Park, its history and current events, please visit:
https://www.peoplespark.org/wp/
https://defendthepark.org/

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Max Ventura, Leon Rosselson, The World Turned Upside Down, aka The Diggers Song, A Mural, and People’s Park

Max, Ingrid, People's Park bathroom mural - April 13, 2019
Max, Ingrid, People’s Park bathroom mural – April 13, 2019

Leading up to the 50th anniversary of People’s Park, in 2019, Max Ventura wrote to Leon Rosselson to let him know that in spite of UC’s continual threats for half a century, we’re still here holding down The Commons. Max had sung his song, The World Turned Upside Down, aka The Diggers Song, on the Free Speech Stage since 1986. What follows is the interchange between them in 2019. While the one quote from him was so inspiring, Greg suggested that we share the whole interchange about the history of the making of the mural bearing the words to his song, The World Turned Upside Down. It is based on The Diggers in England in 1649, and some of Gerrard Winstanley’s words. The Diggers’ history and Leon’s song is such an important part of People’s Park History.
 
On 15 Apr 2019, at 06:05, Max Ventura beneficialbug@sonic.net wrote:

Dear Leon,

We now are celebrating our 50 year anniversary of People’s Park in Berkeley, California.
We met at Down Home Music some years ago and I brought you a copy of our book in which the mural is featured. I continue to sing the Diggers Song as I have sung out there since 1986. It became our instant anthem all those decades ago and people begged meto paint up the lyrics. So one anniversary I did so on the sides of the concrete bricks leading to the men’s bathroom entrance. It took over 7 hours (I don’t recommend painting on concrete without proper brushes, at very least, unless in an emergency which it seemed this was!

Some years later as it had faded, people asked me to repaint them so I spent another anniversary concert day repainting. Sore arms. It was no easier the second time, and once again it was with perhaps the worst possible brushes since I had not planned ahead to redo that day. Emergency! though… so I made do.

Then some years after that when there had been just a bit too much chaotic graffiti on that big wall between the bathroom entrances, we decided a new mural would be a good idea and some of the park dwellers said it was getting too hard to read the tiny and faded lyrics and they wanted them big and bold so a local park supporter and artist did some initial sketching to lay out my ideas and a park dweller who’s an artist, and I, further planned the mural. He started painting the background and hills, and I painted the banners and spent (ouch!) another long day painting lyrics onto the banners during another anniversary concert and then holding the ladder while Terri Compost painted up the park history above. It’s been I don’t know how many years and there has been little graffiti and some of what’s been added is interactive right on the banners. Living art.

People’s Park is 50 years of User-development and I just wanted to share, once again, how important your song has been to the people living in, and visiting the park, and that is obvious as this has been one of the longest-lasting mural up there.

So thanks for being part of People’s Park, a model for our world. Messy sometimes, but a vision we have helped nurture and which lives on in spite of the University aggressively attacking the park and the people of the park many times over the half century.

Just this Jan. they came in 5 am one morning and decimated over 40 healthy trees. They say they plan to build housing for students but that was what was there 50 years ago, before they razed the beautiful old houses and apartments on that block. So our response? We’ve been planting other trees and they keep threatening to down those, also. And so it goes, and we remind “the public” that, it’s never been about providing housing, but about silencing free speech and sanitizing the area to please wealthy parents sending their children from the suburbs.

So we are on to our next 50 years. We had our first of two anniversary concerts yesterday and the second is the 28th. In between we have nearly daily events. I’m attaching a flyer for one I’ve coordinated, and at which I shall speak. If you go to www.peoplespark.org you can see the schedule of events. Lots of inspiration.

Sincerely,
Max Ventura

Subject: Re: photos in front of people’s park bathroom mural
Date: 2019-04-21 03:26
From: leon rosselson
To: Max Ventura beneficialbug@sonic.net

Dear Max,

Thank you so much for your email, the photos and all the information about the happenings in People’s Park. I’m touched and feel honoured that you have given so much of your time and worked so hard to give the lyrics of my song a new life on this beautiful mural. This is my 60th year of singing and writing and one of my most treasured moments in all that time was to visit People’s Park and see the mural when I was in Berkeley in 2011. I am unlikely to visit again but I have the book, so thank you.

Good luck for the next 50 years. What you are all doing is a bright spot of hope in these bleak times.

Leon Rosselson

On 26 Apr 2019, at 00:15, Ventura beneficialbug@sonic.net wrote:

Hello again,

We’ve had such a great almost 2 weeks of celebrations already, have a few more workshops and other events, and have our second concert all day Sunday.

At our People’s Park Committee meeting Sunday, people wanted me to ask you whether we could put this onto our website (we’d say, of course, that this is from you, writer of The World Turned Upside Down). The website is www.peoplespark.org:

Re: May we put this quote from you on the People’s Park website?

“This is my 60th year of singing and writing and one of my most treasured moments in all that time was to visit People’s Park and see the mural when I was in Berkeley in 2011. I am unlikely to visit again but I have the book, so thank you.

Good luck for the next 50 years. What you are all doing is a bright spot of hope in these bleak times.”

From leon rosselson

To: Max Ventura beneficialbug@sonic.net
Date: 2019-04-26 10:01

By all means, Max. It is sincerely meant.

Leon

Added in 2021 as we are about to celebrate 52 years, enjoying the student and community uprising end of January where UC’s fences once again were torn down, and then were marched down Telegraph Avenue to be deposited on the steps of Sproul Hall:

While I was painting the lyrics on the mural so many years ago, my three children painted over the faded tiny lyrics on the edges of the concrete block wall at the bathroom entrance. They painted veggies and this kid art also has been left alone for everyone to enjoy. Even their names survive on the bottom painting of the bunch. Attached is a photo of Ingrid by those veggies paintings from so long ago, and there is one of Ingrid and me in front of the mural in 2019.

— Max Ventura

Ingrid, People's Park bathroom tiles - April 13, 2019
Ingrid, People’s Park bathroom tiles – April 13, 2019
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People’s Park and Neighborhood Groups Challenge UC’s 2021 LRDP

In a lawsuit claiming the nearly total inadequacy of the University of California’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on its 2021 Long Range Development Plan and Housing Project #1 and Housing Project #2 (LRDP) a team of lawyers representing Make UC a Good Neighbor and the People’s Park Historic Advocacy Group (PPHDAG) are seeking to void approval of the LRDP and the EIR, and thereby stop all activities proposed in that LRDP. This legal action is of great importance to supporters of People’s Park since it would mean significant delays for any attempts to destroy the Park by erecting three buildings on that beloved site. It would also keep our friends at 1921 Walnut Street in their rent controlled homes for the time being.

The lead attorney in this suit, Thomas Lippe, has prevailed in two California Environmental Quality Act cases against the University of California and, because his most recent victory against UC concerned plans to build on Upper Hearst, Mr Lippe is very familiar with the 2021 LRDP. This suit wast filed on August 20, 2021 in the Superior Court of California in and for the county of Alameda.

It describes the nearly total failure of the EIR for the 2021 LEDP to adequately either describe or address the environmental effects caused by the program or projects proposed in the LRDP. Among its contentions are that the EIR fails to make required findings, fails to propose and evaluate adequate mitigation measures, fails to respond in good faith to the public comments received in response to the draft EIR, and fails to lawfully assess the LRDP’s effects on traffic, noise, air pollution, population and housing, parks and recreation, or historic and cultural resources.

This site will post any response from UC or upcoming court dates as they are announced.

— joe liesner, secretary People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group

Donate to Lawsuit at:
People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group
P.O. Box 1234
Berkeley, CA 94701-1234

More information at peoplesparkhxdist.org

Full text PDF:
Make UC A Good Neighbor, et al., v The Regents – LRDP Petition.pdf

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Rally and Noise Demo: Tuesday, June 29, 2021, 6 PM, Berkeley City Hall

We’re gathering together people for one last Noise Demo on Tuesday June 29.

RALLY AND NOISE DEMO

Berkeley City Council is voting on the annual budget this week. Together we are telling them:

NO to UC Berkeley’s plans to destroy affordable housing and green space at People’s Park and 1921 Walnut street to build expensive student dorms!

NO to an increased municipal police budget while poor and working people are still lacking basic services!

Tuesday June 29, 2021, 6 PM, Berkeley City Hall

Hope to see you there!

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Letter to UC Regents – Do not build housing on People’s Park

To The UC regents, staff, and concerned citizens,

This letter is regarding Agenda Action Item F4-A: Preliminary Plans Funding, People’s Park Housing, Berkeley.

People’s Park in Berkeley is a poor choice for this housing project for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the incredible importance of this site on a national and even international level. The death and grievous woundings that resulted from then-governor Reagan’s unleashing of live ammunition on student protesters and innocent bystanders in 1969 was a pivotal moment launching a trajectory of polarized politics that is playing out today. The historical integrity of the site is not confined to 1960’s radicalism on and off campus. The advent of the user-defined development movement and the ecology and food not bombs movements also play crucial roles in the legacy of people’s park past and present. Sproul Plaza may have been the site of many rallies of the free speech movement but the flowering of radicalism and counter culture in Southside campus (which is so important to UC Berkeley’s legacy) has found its most fertile ground at People’s Park. Today the park is in use as community gardens and open space for rest and relaxation to many people, a treasured open space for over 50 years, a living monument to the passions and struggle of that tumultuous and important era. Nowhere is that legacy more integral than Berkeley, especially adjacent UC Berkeley campus. No shadowed plaque could replace this powerful testament.

In addition, students and faculty have expressed continuous interest in the park as an area of study. People’s Park offers a unique environment for experiments in user-defined community projects, as the site is not confined by city park management bureaucracy and has a large and committed constituency that is deeply invested in both the physical site and the more abstract meaning there. I and many students feel that UC should view People’s Park as part of the university’s diverse offerings, not as s blemish that needs to be suppressed and/or destroyed. I feel that the agricultural study areas at Oxford and Gill Tract are worthy of preservation for similar reasons; UC Berkeley gains value by having diverse study offerings. Local graduates also gain horticultural careers through these programs; a wonderful community benefit that the school provides.

There are quite a few other sites to build on that have much less community pain and resistance associated with them, Including the 6 other sites listed in your current housing plan. This plan spans the decade of the 2020s in scope, with the sites projected to be developed sequentially. At the end of this decade, 50 acres of UC land and another 50 acres of adjacent city land at Clark Kerr campus become buildable. 2032 marks the expiration of a 50 year no-build covenant that UC generously signed with affluent neighbors. The times have changed. Over a hundred acres of prime land near campus can, should, and will be built upon to alleviate this terrible housing crisis. With this huge undeveloped area soon to come online, there is no logical excuse for developing such a small and controversial site as People’s Park.

Thank you,
Ivar Diehl
Berkeley resident
Oakland business owner