Features

People’s Park Group Prepares To Defend Park From UC Plans

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday November 17, 2006

Community members and users of People’s Park are organizing a meeting on Sunday to plan how to defend the bulldozing of the berms, or mounds, on both ends of the Community Garden in the park. 

In an effort to help the police to see through the park without getting out of their cars, UC Berkeley recently laid out a plan to bulldoze the berms.  

Both chiefs from the UC Berkeley police departments explained the need to thin the vegetation for better visibility through the park at the People’s Park Community Advisory Board meeting on Monday. 

In meeting with UC officials and the advisory board in July, park users had made it clear that any attempt to cut down trees and trim shrubbery in an effort to clean the university-owned park should be done with community input. 

Board members said they were not convinced at the July meeting that clearing trees was the only way to check the crime and drug problem in the park. The board will be deciding on what advice it would give about bulldozing the berms at their next meeting on Dec. 4 at the Trinity Methodist Church in Berkeley. 

 

Planning meeting in the Park: Sunday Nov. 19, 4 p.m., Council Grove (northwest corner of the park.) 

People’s Park Community Advisory Board meeting: Monday Dec. 4, 7 p.m., Trinity Methodist Church, 2362 Bancroft Way.