Public Comment

To anyone who knows what Berkeley in the 1960s meant to the history of progressive politics in the U.S., the significance of People’s Park is clear. That very clarity is the reason that UC, needing to play down their pro-war, racist, corporate ideology, now provides Chancellor Christ millions of dollars to destroy our park.

To believe that Housing Project #2 (HP2) at People’s Park is essentially anything but a means to erase UC’s imperialist, racist, pro-war history and to defeat the park’s living spirit of dissent requires one to ignore 54 years of UC’s attacks on People’s Park and the decisions of the administration that have resulted in HP2 being delayed two years and cost overruns of tens of millions. One can only conclude that the park’s destruction was always UC’s priority. From the bulldozing of the homes and apartments on the block that became People’s Park in hope of disrupting student activism, up until today’s border wall of cargo containers, UC’s role in the crushing of the Student Protest Movement of the 1960’s was too incriminating for them to bear.

One of the first indications that HP2 at People’s Park held some extraordinary significance, can be seen in the September 29, 2021 Capital Strategies Committee of the UC Regents (Item F3). The budget for HP2 detailed in that document contained a $23 M contingency for the cost of unexpected legal fees and “the cost of clearing the site,” read cops and lawyers. $23M is a considerable amount for an institution like UCB that is drowning in debt (see Memorial Stadium’s total cost of $1Billion). Yet the Regents didn’t think that such a huge sum for police and lawyers was sufficient reason to even consider building somewhere else. Such was the Regents commitment to insuring the final days of People’s Park. 

What the events of recent years now reveal is that UC’s HP2 at People’s Park is nothing more than a cynical way to use housing and homelessness as cover for a history of grand moral duplicity. The years wasted while the chancellor indulged her fixation on the destruction of People’s Park have meant that needed student beds were delayed for years, 10% of UCB students have no stable housing, fentanyl deaths in the park have 

occurred with frightening regularity, and the supportive housing component of HP2 faces a nearly impossible chance of being realized. 

Dr. Christ’s, knowing the various risks involved in building over People’s Park offered any developer a master contract on all nine UC owned properties available for housing projects if they developed People’s Park first. Seeing how the risks outweighed the profits . . . none took the offer. 

Bob Lelanne, former Vice Chancellor for Real Estate at UCB has informed us that up until 2016 when planning for new student dorms People’s Park was always excluded as a feasible site. In 2017 Carol Christ becomes Chancellor and building on People’s Park rose to prominence on her agenda. 

A former Berkeley Mayor remembers Christ as insisting on discussing the development of the People’s Park at meetings where People’s Park was not yet on any agenda. And rumor, for what it is, has it that Christ’s “job description” as chancellor included developing People’s Park.  

With Carol Christ financial and legal manipulations combine with a callous use of the homeless as pawns, all with the assistance of the UC Board of Regents. There is hardly a mention of HP2 wherein UCB does not proclaim itself the protector and provider for the homeless in People’s Park. The actual treatment of those homeless makes the hollow hypocrisy of Ms. Christ and her speech writer Mr. Mogulof painfully clear. The homeless, the afflicted, and the addicted were only a part of UCB’s plan to take and destroy People’s Park when they served to aggravate the community, scare students, or to suggest institutional morality. Yes, as hopes for construction on the park came closer, clearing the park of its dwellers meant they were offered motel rooms and other services, but those offers took 50 years to materialize, and as they were touted to the public new harms were inflicted by the university. 

Water, first for gardening, then also for drinking, was shut off at People’s Park. There was hardly ever electricity unless it was jacked from a light pole. The bathrooms, which were never maintained at any standard of decency, were welded shut. Methamphetamine and fentanyl are tolerated by the park’s property owners (UC) to the degree that when BPD or UCPD respond to drug crimes or incidents they often leave a calling card or arrest a user, but never the dealer. 

On August3, 2022 when UC cut down the trees on the site proposed for supportive housing as part of HP2 the building of housing for the formerly homeless was severely jeopardized. Funding for that housing depended on funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD), and because People’s Park is on the National Register of Historic Places an National Historic Preservation Act environmental review had to be completed before HUD funds would be released. Resources for Community Development (RCD) asked UC to give them needed time to complete that review. UC refused and RCD had to relinquish the funds. 

We know from in person meetings with RCD that their Supportive Housing project at People’s Park caused them some discomfort due to their respect for the park. Their decision to build that housing was based on getting a free ground lease which allowed them to build twice the number of units (120) they otherwise could have otherwise afforded (60). Being thrown under the bus by UC was a betrayal of both RCD and the homeless. Building supportive housing customarily requires federal assistance. After UC’s refusal to cooperate with RCD it will be hard to find another non-profit developer who’ll step up to create supportive housing at People’s Park. Had UC been true to their claimed commitment to the homeless and had cooperated with RCD it is more likely that supportive housing would someday be built. 

The August 3, 2022 attempts to seize People’s Park failed, costing UC 3-5 million dollars. Then, in the first days of 2024, hoping to finally take control of the land and the meaning of People’s Park, another 6-8 million dollars is made available for the final destruction of People’s Park. On January 4, 2024, to insure that Carol Christ can retire, victorious, 1,400 police clear and secure the park, then crews erect a 17 foot high, border-like wall of sea cargo containers surrounding the park, and finally flesh tearing razor wire is stretched atop the container wall; all of which moves Dr. Christ to tell Berkeley that destroying People’s Park is one of the most important things she’s done as chancellor. Grandiose moral hypocrisy at the point of a gun!b