The crews labored all of Wednesday on the campus-owned park “in an effort to provide students and the broader community with safer, more sanitary conditions,” according to a campus press release.
“The overall look of the park itself will not change — the stage, benches, community gardens and other features will remain intact,” the release reads.
But according to Terri Compost, an activist and gardener at the park, the work crews leveled structures that were of historic significance for the park community as a part of the maintenance project.
Compost said the crews leveled a pergola that volunteers put together after the campus installed a volleyball court in the park in 1991 that resulted in a span of riots and protests by park activists.
The pergola, which went through a long process of design by park volunteers before being approved by architects hired by the campus, acted as a sort of peace symbol after the volleyball court was removed, Compost said.
According to long-time People’s Park volunteer Arthur Fonseca, the sudden arrival of the work crews also upset many park-goers because they did not receive notice from the campus about the project ahead of time.
“In reality it’s obviously a public park, and dealing with it as private property is totally inappropriate,” he said.
Over the course of the project, a flier from the campus was distributed through the park explaining the project and emphasizing that the overall look of the park would not be changed by the maintenance.
According to the release, additional improvements to the park will be made in coming months and will include the addition of more trash cans and lights as well as efforts to reduce the rat population by improving the park’s compost bin and installing wire mesh at the stage located in the park.
Jaehak Yu and Annie Sciacca cover city government.
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Would of made a great parking structure site…
What do you want to do with the vermin anyways? Out of sight, out of mind, as alwaysAnd
is there a problem with that? Why do working, productive citizens need
to roust these people out of their doorways, chase them out of their
places of businesses, and even cross paths with these people? Why does
your mother/daughter/sister/wife/girlfriend need to feel uncomfortable
by encountering these people loitering around their car, or on the
street when they are out around town after dark? What useful purpose
does that serve, unless your intent is to have these people around to
force confrontations and promote class warfare?…institutionalize them huh?If
they are not competent to care for themselves, or are a danger to
themselves and/or others, then yes, they DO need to be
institutionalized, so they can receive supervision/care/treatment as
appropriate. Otherwise, they should conduct themselves as responsible
adults engaged in productive activities, not hanging around an area
known from drug and criminal activity. Sure that’s the best option for some of the people, but last time I checked, poverty was caused by lack of money. Most
of the so-called “homeless” in this country aren’t on the streets due
to poverty. Most of them are there because of substance abuse and/or
mental health issues. Poverty is the RESULT of their actions, not the
cause of them.I’m not saying that everyone is homeless because they made all the right choices and just got screwed by the system, far from it. I totally agree with you about the ridiculous image that influential people portray and we would be much better off lending them no attention, but the truth is that not only can drug use lead to poverty,
but also that poverty can lead to drug use, and it’s ambiguous which one
contributes more to the other.Over
the years, I have personally known and been on a first-name basis with 8
individuals who are “homeless”, and in fact knew most of those people
BEFORE they wound up out of a home and on the streets. For the record,
all but one are white anglos, 5 are male, 3 are female. Their ages range
from about 30 to 65. 6 have ongoing substance abuse issues (alcohol
and/or illicit narcotics). 5 of those individuals are mentally ill, and
in fact their substance abuse contributed to their problems. The other 2
have extensive enough criminal records (i.e. multiple felonies) so for
practical purposes they are effectively unemployable. In fact, 6 of the
8 have some form of criminal conviction other than FTAs (failure to
appear, usually from not paying a ticket) or DUIs. Regarding their
economic demographics, 1 came from an upper-middle-class midwestern
family (father was a doctor), 3 were solid middle class, the other 4
were working class but by no means indigent (one homeless woman had a
husband and brother who owned a successful family business, a homeless
brother and sister inherited money as adults from their deceased
parents, including a condo in San Diego). One of the homeless males was a
former co-worker who slept on my couch in my home in the South Bay for
several months while a few of us tried to get him back on his feet. NONE
of them wound up on the streets because of “poverty” – in fact, the
one sleeping on my couch was making over $120K/year while spending all
his money on booze and bar girls in his various travels. Every single
one of them eventually wound up on the street because their own personal
dysfunctions made them effectively unemployable, and eventually burned
their bridges with their friends, family, SOs, and any personal support
network. I could go on and on about some of the outrageous stories about
how these people, despite the best efforts of people who knew them
personally, engaged in the type of self-destructive behavior that got
them into their predicament, but it would merely piss me off for the
rest of the evening. Suffice to say that most of the sympathy I may have
had at one time for the so-called “homeless” evaporated a long time
ago. “Liberals” are not out to baby the poorWhen
you refuse to hold people responsible for their actions, you
essentially baby them, regardless of whether that was your original
intention.
just pull them out of the shithole they live inIt’s
hard to pull people out of a shithole when they keep on digging
themselves in deeper. It’s one thing to help people who are trying to
help themselves, but your typical Berkeley transient is there for one
reason only, because it’s a liberal college town with a bum-friendly
environment that allows them to take the path of least resistance, and
lets them engage in behavior that would not be tolerated or accepted
anywhere else. and offer them equal opportunities.These
people have often had the same “equal opportunities” as the rest of us,
often more. If they chose to throw away those opportunities that were
offered to them, why should the rest of us go out of the way to offer
even more to them? I’m willing to help genuinely poor/disadvantaged
people who are making the effort (although that help should be through
voluntary efforts of individuals and private charities, NOT the
government). OTOH, I’m not willing to give a penny more in taxpayer
dollars (nor would I coerce others to pay either) just to try to help
people who aren’t interested in helping themselves. It’s not a matter of logic, but of morality. Morality
starts for standing up for one’s personal values. What’s “moral” about
enabling an alcohol or druggie by giving him cash handouts so he can
poison himself even more? What’s “moral” about stealing tax dollars from
responsible working people to help the irresponsible?The most logical thing to do would just be to make our society so harsh that the
impoverished simply died. That way, we wouldn’t have to take care of them or clean up after them. Cheaper and more convenient for us.No,
the most logical thing to do is to stop the crippling effect of the
social welfare state by teaching our young people at an early age that
the role of government is not to be some cross between a babysitter and
Santa Claus, stress that individuals assume primary responsibilities for
their own actions, and that irresponsibility and poor judgement come
with consequences. Not to lock them up and let them starve, but not to
let them run amuck either. A society of individual freedom is dependent
on personal responsibility. If you can not or will not take care of your
own needs, you have no right to dictate to others the circumstances
surrounding your own life. You don’t demand that the University of
California, city of Berkeley, or the state of California provide you
with food, shelter, and a place to squat of your own choosing. You want a
place to live, you go to the homeless shelter – and abide by their
rules or get kicked out. If you need medical treatment for your
drug/alcohol addiction, you either sign up AND successfully complete a
voluntary treatment. If you can’t handle it on your own, you get
committed to some type of home or institution to get the care you need.
If you don’t care for either of those, leave town or face jail time for
vagrancy. Responsible people get the right to lead their private lives
as they see fit, provided they don’t harm or infringe on the rights of
others. OTOH, beggars can’t be choosers. You want the support of the
support of the taxpayers, you abide by the terms and conditions set
before you, or hit the road…I don’t quite follow your argument that a “liberal welfare state” is the cause of homelessness and poverty either. Then you’re clearly in denial of reality, as far as this country is concerned…Then you’re clearly in denial of the truth.
What do you want to do with the vermin anyways? Out of sight, out of
mind, as always
And is there a problem with that? Why do working, productive citizens need to roust these people out of their doorways, chase them out of their places of businesses, and even cross paths with these people? Why does your mother/daughter/sister/wife/girlfriend need to feel uncomfortable by encountering these people loitering around their car, or on the street when they are out around town after dark? What useful purpose does that serve, unless your intent is to have these people around to force confrontations and promote class warfare?
…institutionalize them huh?
If they are not competent to care for themselves, or are a danger to themselves and/or others, then yes, they DO need to be institutionalized, so they can receive supervision/care/treatment as appropriate. Otherwise, they should conduct themselves as responsible adults engaged in productive activities, not hanging around an area known from drug and criminal activity.
Sure that’s the best option
for some of the people, but last time I checked, poverty was caused by
lack of money.
Most of the so-called “homeless” in this country aren’t on the streets due to poverty. Most of them are there because of substance abuse and/or mental health issues. Poverty is the RESULT of their actions, not the cause of them.
I’m not saying that everyone is homeless because they
made all the right choices and just got screwed by the system, far from
it. I totally agree with you about the ridiculous image that influential
people portray and we would be much better off lending them no
attention, but the truth is that not only can drug use lead to poverty,
but also that poverty can lead to drug use, and it’s ambiguous which one
contributes more to the other.
Over the years, I have personally known and been on a first-name basis with 8 individuals who are “homeless”, and in fact knew most of those people BEFORE they wound up out of a home and on the streets. For the record, all but one are white anglos, 5 are male, 3 are female. Their ages range from about 30 to 65. 6 have ongoing substance abuse issues (alcohol and/or illicit narcotics). 5 of those individuals are mentally ill, and in fact their substance abuse contributed to their problems. The other 2 have extensive enough criminal records (i.e. multiple felonies) so for practical purposes they are effectively unemployable. In fact, 6 of the 8 have some form of criminal conviction other than FTAs (failure to appear, usually from not paying a ticket) or DUIs. Regarding their economic demographics, 1 came from an upper-middle-class midwestern family (father was a doctor), 3 were solid middle class, the other 4 were working class but by no means indigent (one homeless woman had a husband and brother who owned a successful family business, a homeless brother and sister inherited money as adults from their deceased parents, including a condo in San Diego). One of the homeless males was a former co-worker who slept on my couch in my home in the South Bay for several months while a few of us tried to get him back on his feet. NONE of them wound up on the streets because of “poverty” – in fact, the one sleeping on my couch was making over $120K/year while spending all his money on booze and bar girls in his various travels. Every single one of them eventually wound up on the street because their own personal dysfunctions made them effectively unemployable, and eventually burned their bridges with their friends, family, SOs, and any personal support network. I could go on and on about some of the outrageous stories about how these people, despite the best efforts of people who knew them personally, engaged in the type of self-destructive behavior that got them into their predicament, but it would merely piss me off for the rest of the evening. Suffice to say that most of the sympathy I may have had at one time for the so-called “homeless” evaporated a long time ago.
“Liberals” are not out to baby the poor
When you refuse to hold people responsible for their actions, you essentially baby them, regardless of whether that was your original intention.
just pull them out of the shithole they live in
It’s hard to pull people out of a shithole when they keep on digging themselves in deeper. It’s one thing to help people who are trying to help themselves, but your typical Berkeley transient is there for one reason only, because it’s a liberal college town with a bum-friendly environment that allows them to take the path of least resistance, and lets them engage in behavior that would not be tolerated or accepted anywhere else.
and offer them equal
opportunities.
These people have often had the same “equal opportunities” as the rest of us, often more. If they chose to throw away those opportunities that were offered to them, why should the rest of us go out of the way to offer even more to them? I’m willing to help genuinely poor/disadvantaged people who are making the effort (although that help should be through voluntary efforts of individuals and private charities, NOT the government). OTOH, I’m not willing to give a penny more in taxpayer dollars (nor would I coerce others to pay either) just to try to help people who aren’t interested in helping themselves.
It’s not a matter of logic, but of morality.
Morality starts for standing up for one’s personal values. What’s “moral” about enabling an alcohol or druggie by giving him cash handouts so he can poison himself even more? What’s “moral” about stealing tax dollars from responsible working people to help the irresponsible?
The most
logical thing to do would just be to make our society so harsh that the
impoverished simply died. That way, we wouldn’t have to take care of
them or clean up after them. Cheaper and more convenient for us.
No, the most logical thing to do is to stop the crippling effect of the social welfare state by teaching our young people at an early age that the role of government is not to be some cross between a babysitter and Santa Claus, stress that individuals assume primary responsibilities for their own actions, and that irresponsibility and poor judgement come with consequences. Not to lock them up and let them starve, but not to let them run amuck either. A society of individual freedom is dependent on personal responsibility. If you can not or will not take care of your own needs, you have no right to dictate to others the circumstances surrounding your own life. You don’t demand that the University of California, city of Berkeley, or the state of California provide you with food, shelter, and a place to squat of your own choosing. You want a place to live, you go to the homeless shelter – and abide by their rules or get kicked out. If you need medical treatment for your drug/alcohol addiction, you either sign up AND successfully complete a voluntary treatment. If you can’t handle it on your own, you get committed to some type of home or institution to get the care you need. If you don’t care for either of those, leave town or face jail time for vagrancy. Responsible people get the right to lead their private lives as they see fit, provided they don’t harm or infringe on the rights of others. OTOH, beggars can’t be choosers. You want the support of the support of the taxpayers, you abide by the terms and conditions set before you, or hit the road…
I don’t quite follow your argument that a “liberal
welfare state” is the cause of homelessness and poverty either.
Then you’re clearly in denial of reality.
Then you’re clearly in denial of the truth.
A meeting regarding the BULLDOZING OF PEOPLES PARK will be held TOMORROW, January 3, 2011 at 5:30 p.m. at the Café Mediterraneum, 2475 Telegraph Ave, (between Dwight Way & Haste St) in Berkeley. We will be up on the 2nd floor.
You can reach me at (510) 205-7957 or on facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002960138974#!/profile.php?id=100002868490694
A police officer
at the scene admitted the University intentionally surreptitiously scheduled
this bulldozing of the park when the students were gone, many activists out of
town and Occupy Berkeley had been dismantled. They purposefully did it to not
have a confrontation with those of us in the Peoples
Park community.
A partial list of
the plants destroyed: Manzanetta, apple tree, bamboo, blackberry, ice plant,
lemon tree, vitex, jasmine, butterfly bush, at least two plum trees, one was
pruned too high to pick fruit from, rose bush, hemlock yucca tree, coffee
berry, pineapple, guava, and kiwi trees. The Pergola was removed and destroyed.
The damage would be in the thousands.
Here are a couple
of articles that were in the media on what happened including photos: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/12/28/18703537.php;
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/12/28/18703530.php
As a result of the
destruction in the park both individuals and groups who use the Park on a daily
basis have gathered together to take action against the University. The groups
include members of Food Not Bombs, Occupy Berkeley, Hate Camp and Peoples Park
Forever Committee.
The ideas of
action being considered are (1) submitting a claim against the University for
the replacement value of the matured trees, plants, flowers, scrubs, cacti and
landscaping (2) starting an on-line petition against the Chancellor condemning
the University for its action; (3) filing a lawsuit for a violation of the
public trust.
PLEASE COME AND
PARTICIPATE! THE PARK BELONGS TO ALL OF US WHO USE IT!
I’m going to come over to your house (assuming you have one) and use it, then say it belongs to me.
I am going to escort you to class because your childish behavior would indicate you would get lost on campus.
Funny how the one making threats is scolding others for childish behavior.
I’ll be at the meeting to express my strong support for bulldozing the park. Thanks for the heads up !!!
Please come over Guest246 and identify yourself. We will see how long you last. :)
Ooh, a brave Internet poster threatening others online. Kindly fornicate yourself, little boy.
We welcome you too Tony M. Please come. You have nothing else going on in your life but making inane mindless chatter about nothing always behind the protection of your computer.
We have a Sergeant at Arms if you would like to meet him in person…in fact several. :)
I have a real job. I don’t have time to play games with a silly self-important bum advocate in Bezerkeley. But I do hope you mouth off to the wrong person someday and get a taste of the same crap you foist on others…
Given that it’s not your park, what right do you have to tell the legal owners what to do with it?
Guess you never went beyond 3rd grade….walk into the law library on campus, do your research and you will be able to answer your own question.
Is there a title for this property with your name on it filed in the Alameda County Recorders’ Office? If not, you don’t own it, and no amount of bloviating online will change that basic truth.
liberalism is a mental disorder
You are projecting your obvious mental disorder on to others. Perhaps you may kwant to consider checking into one of our local mental facilities….I am sure they have room for you…if not, they will make room for you.
Yep, typical liberal. You protest the institutionalization of people who are genuinely f-cked up, but you think those who merely disagree with you belong in a mental facility. Idiot.
In order to properly ensure that the 4-legged vermin are eradicated, you need to get rid of the 2-legged vermin that provide a conducive environment for rodent reproduction. Mankind long ago discovered that reducing filth and squalor was necessary to keep rats and mice in check. Only in nutcase liberal enclaves like Berkeley to people consider commonsense pest control measures to be an “obscenity”…
If you think liberals are such nutcases, why do you comment on a blog that you consider is conducive to them? You must be the real nutcase…
Not everyone who attended Cal is a liberal. We have as much right to post here as anyone else. Sorry you’re so intolerant of anything that doesn’t toe the liberal line, but that’s life.
Sorry that you think that the only way to defend yourself is to speak for others (in addition to the fact that Stan De San Diego = Tony M). I am not intolerant, I am simply stating common sense. I wouldn’t go on fox news’ website and comment, because I have better things to do than argue with people that won’t change their mind anyway (ie liberals here and conservatives on fox’ website). Your name calling and constant intent to propagate partisan politics is quite discouraging, so it’s clear that you don’t intend to have an intelligent discussion.
So you don’t like the fact that I called the People’s Park denizens “2-legged vermin”? Boo-freaking-hoo, that’s EXACTLY what they are. As far as your idea of who should post on what website, are you trying to argue that this website is somehow designated for those of the left-of-center persuasion, and that people with alternate points of view shouldn’t post here? Seems YOU are the one who can’t handle different points of view…
Yeah, I don’t understand why we can’t just kill all of the 2-legged vermin in the park? I mean, BURN them. BURN. Right? I mean, it’s not like class-based genocide has no precedents…
Come on, it’s just disgusting to call ANY other human “vermin”. What the hell is wrong with you? How is it conducive to call other people “vermin”? That’s company well kept with quite a few notable dictatorships in the world.
I have an idea. Let’s try to fix the root problem that we have homeless, poor, and mentally ill people roaming our streets in a 1st-world country. Or, instead, we can just exterminate them all and just become Nazi Gemany Mk II.
[Yeah, I don't understand why we can't just kill all of the 2-legged vermin in the park? I mean, BURN them. BURN. Right? I mean, it's notlike class-based genocide has no precedents...]
And here’s another classic example how liberals respond to arguments where they can’t win on facts and logic. They make wild extrapolations in order to insinuate that their opponents are murderers.
[I have an idea. Let's try to fix the root problem that we have homeless,
poor, and mentally ill people roaming our streets in a 1st-world country.]
OK, how about the “root problem” of a liberal welfare state mentality where nobody is held responsible for their actions, where people can’t be locked up or institutionalized when they present a clear and present danger to themselves and/or others, and where the solution to every problem is to throw more taxpayer money at it, regardless of the end results? How about the root cause of not being honest about the primary contributors of homelessness, which are substance abuse, and mental illness often brought about by substance abuse? How about the root cause of a society of self-centered narcissistic actors and celebrities who glamorize and condone drug abuse, and fail to accept that they are setting a destructive example for others? Or are those root causes not acceptable because it doesn’t give you a chance to blame George Bush, Fox News, the Tea Party, or rich people for all the ills of the world?
What do you want to do with the vermin anyways? Out of sight, out of mind, as always…institutionalize them huh? Sure that’s the best option for some of the people, but last time I checked, poverty was caused by lack of money. I’m not saying that everyone is homeless because they made all the right choices and just got screwed by the system, far from it. I totally agree with you about the ridiculous image that influential people portray and we would be much better off lending them no attention, but the truth is that not only can drug use lead to poverty, but also that poverty can lead to drug use, and it’s ambiguous which one contributes more to the other. “Liberals” are not out to baby the poor, just pull them out of the shithole they live in and offer them equal opportunities. It’s not a matter of logic, but of morality. The most logical thing to do would just be to make our society so harsh that the impoverished simply died. That way, we wouldn’t have to take care of them or clean up after them. Cheaper and more convenient for us. But I know that according to my morals, that would be unthinkably monstrous. Maybe your morals are different, and everyone is entitled to their own sense of morality…until it impinges on the rights and freedoms of others (i.e. believing that the poor are “vermin” to be treated like rats is OK).
I don’t quite follow your argument that a “liberal welfare state” is the cause of homelessness and poverty either. Are you saying that by spending less money on safety nets and support for the poor they would get richer? I mean, what’s your idea of how a society should be run so that we don’t have “vermin” running around (the two-legged kind, of course!)?
Tony M is our resident sociopath who, if ignored, will go back under the rock from whence he came.
Funny how the professional “homeless advocate” who hates those who are successful calls others a sociopath…
one 2 legged vermin apparently did leave and moved to san diego.by the way the telegraph avenue business improvement district(tbid)a landlord dominated group are the ultimate villians in this edition of peoples park makeover because to them an unbuilt on piece of land means room for commercial properties or dorms contrary to the needs of a
Lay off hitting da pipe before you post next time, cranky…
Was that supposed to be a coherent post?
This is from someone from San Diego. Why are you here in Berkeley in the first place?
I’m not in Berkeley anymore. I graduated from Cal and moved away, like most students who wish to use their education for a productive adult life instead of hanging around Cal or Berkeley for the rest of their existence. Word up: not everyone aspires to become a professional protester or activist…
I guess you have to be a liberal to understand how eradicating rats is “an obscenity”.
loony. not “liberal”, loony. Or a writer for the Berkeley Daily Planet (conservative news rag, opposed to change).
Napalm will do just fine.
Oh and to those who have gardened in the park and are irked:
1) UC owns the park, they will call the shots, live with that FACT.
2) bums fighting each other and pissing themselves in the park… that’s an obscenity.
My favorite quote from the indybay article:
“While there have been rats in the park, what park in California does not have some rats? They deserve a place to live in and a habitat too.”