Public Comment

I’ve been attending the Community for a Cultural Civic Center (CCCC) meetings for months and following the Turtle Island Monument Project story. Looking over the history of the Turtle Island Monument, sketchy as it is, and the current situation, it looks ever so much like Lucy pulling the football once again, with unstated plans to spend close to a million dollars elsewhere. 

I wasted what felt like a day trying to find the documents in the city archives, “records online” to see for myself the original approval process. I had heard the Turtle Island Monument had been discussed for years, but finding documents in records online is like crawling into a deep computer rabbit hole for hours and coming up with little to nothing. I could not find artist submissions or the selection process or the meeting agendas and minutes I was seeking. I did find contracts with Scott K. Parsons and expenditure statements from 2006 and a few other reports. The rest comes from documents supplied to the Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting on December 1, 2022. 

The dedication of Indigenous Peoples Day was declared in 1992, and the idea of turning the defunct Berkeley Civic Center fountain into the Turtle Island Monument evolved shortly after. In 1996, $900,000 was dedicated from Measure S to the Civic Center Park. The Turtle Island Monument was to be paid for out of those funds. Obviously that money went somewhere other than the Turtle Island Monument. 

The Turtle Island Project came back again in 2005 and the Berkeley City Council approved a scaled back version with four bronze Loggerhead Sea Turtles and eight medallions 3 feet in diameter commemorating Native People. A contract was signed with Scott K. Parson from Sioux Falls, South Dakota on June 16, 2006. Parsons fulfilled his commitment and finished the eight medallions and four bronze life size Loggerhead Sea Turtles. None of these artworks ever made it to placement in the fountain. 

In 2018, the Turtle Island Monument Project was resurrected, again incorporating the turtles sculpted and cast by Scott Parsons and the eight medallions. The proposal using native plants and creating a new seating ledge worked within the restriction of keeping the fountain intact. This design was approved by the T1 Committee in 2020. https://turtleislandfountain.org/ 

PGAdesign was hired by the City to implement the project and the T1 committee-approved design. The T1 approved design was discarded in 2022 in meetings which were not public. A new design, credited to Lee Sprague and Marlene Watson for the Turtle Island Monument and presented to the public at the Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 1, 2022, consists of removing the top of the fountain, then placing on top of what is left of the fountain a piece of black granite 15 feet in diameter and 4 feet 3 inches thick (estimated weight 18 tons) with a 12 foot bronze snapping turtle on top. There are four openings in the base of fountain with a blue glass mosaic representing water in two of the openings. The eight tribal medallions are to be embedded in boulders and six more blank medallions representing tribes lost to colonialism are to be placed in the renovated flagstone. https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2022-12-01_LPC_Item%205_Turtle%20Island.pdf 

Sprague has been very insistent in placing a snapping turtle on top of the granite as the symbol of the indigenous peoples’ creation story. The hard shell back of the turtle is the emblem of land and life emerging from the sea to land. 

The deadlines to spend the funds financing the project are June 30, 2024 for the $591,666 from the Clean California Local Grant Program and December 2025 for the $300,000 from the T1 funds. These spending deadlines may seem like a long way off, but a circular piece of black granite 15 feet in diameter and 51 inches thick is not like going over to your local kitchen and bath remodeling store to buy a black granite counter. 

The Civic Arts Commission did review the project on December 7, 2022 and voted to approve the new conceptual design. This time quite a number of local tribal members did show up to support the project and others who had not previously identified as having indigenous heritage also spoke. 

Lisa Bullwinkel, as promised to CCCC, asked about budget/cost of the project. Jennifer Lovvorn, City of Berkeley staff, dismissed Bullwinkel’s question and insisted the cost was unimportant. Bullwinkel then moved to support the design and it was passed unanimously by the Arts Commission. 

The Turtle Island Monument Project was expected to be on the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission (PRW) agenda on December 14, but it was pushed down to an information item containing a letter from John Caner for CCCC. The worry from CCCC is that the Turtle Island Monument project will not be completed within the funding grant deadlines and the funds diverted elsewhere. Gordon Wozniak, PRW commission chair said that the city manager asked to have discussion postponed until January when the City will give a presentation. 

Scott Parson’s public art can be seen in Colorado, Ohio, Canada, Florida, Minnesota, Arizona and Wisconsin, but in Berkeley Parsons’ artwork for the Turtle Island Monument sits in storage and at 2180 Milvia. https://damnfineart.com/our-projects/page/2/ 

The artwork I found for Marlene Watson are paintings and posters. I can’t find any public art for Lee Sprague. This isn’t to say Watson and Sprague can’t have impressive wonderful concepts and the latest design is quite exciting, but it does lead to questions about whether they have the experience to maneuver a project like this one in a city that has a long history of what, once again, looks more like Lucy pulling the football. It seems like there are other plans for where and how to spend the money with statements like “project cost is unimportant.” 

There are two corrections from my December 4 write-up. it was the group that resurrected the Turtle Island Monument Project in 2018 that tracked down Lee Sprague, first not City staff, and I rechecked the size of the granite it is 15 feet in diameter and 51 inches thick changing the weight to 18 tons. https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2022-12-04/article/50095?headline=A-BERKELEY-ACTIVIST-S-DIARY-Week-Ending-December-4--Kelly-Hammargren) 

Bait-and-switch is a well-worn tactic in Berkeley when it comes to how money is spent. It happened again at the Council 5 pm special meeting on December 13 and was the topic of discussion at the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission on December 14. 

In the City Council’s letter to Nancy Skinner, Chair of the State Senate Budget Committee and to Phil Ting, Chair of the State Assembly Budget Committee, the City Council lined out how they would spend the $15 million requested for the Berkeley Marina. Once the money was granted, when it came around to approving the expenditures on December 13, $2,961,000 of the all-important dock and piling replacement funds turned into paying for the environmental review and design of the pier/ferry project. 

Parks Director Scott Ferris and crew swear that WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority) is going pay the city back when and if the lawsuit for Regional Measure 3 funds is settled in favor of the Bay Area Toll Authority and WETA gets a cut of the Measure 3 bridge tolls. 

Ferris put forward the argument that completing an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and design is only a study and not a commitment. EIRs are completed to meet CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) requirements and not undertaken unless there are plans to move forward, meaning “study and not a commitment” falls into pure B.S. 

The entire pier/ferry plan, with the promise that WETA is going to pay for it, makes me think of Trump’s border wall: “Mexico is going to pay for it.” 

Commissioner Kerry Birnbach said her friends were anxious for a ferry ride in Berkeley. In my public comment, I asked if they would feel the same if they paid a full fare of around $28. I received a text that some believe that the true per-person cost of ferrying people across the bay when all costs are included may be as high as $100 per rider. 

After going through the WETA year to date revenue and expenditures, that average fare cost of around $5.53 is subsidized with bridge tolls, Contra Costa Measure J and federal funds to the tune of $27.74, with an actual cost of $33.27 per ferry ride. This subsidy calculation is low as it does not include all of the funding needed for terminal rehabilitation, infrastructure, new and replacement vessels. 

The main point is that ferries do not exist on the Bay without substantial public financing through federal funds, state funds, bridge tolls and sales taxes. The people who use the ferries are disproportionally high income households with 35% of weekday commuter survey respondents reporting household incomes of greater than $200,000. People from low income households earning less than $50,000 make up 7% of riders overall with their utilization primarily on the weekends. 

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Over the weekend I had the opportunity to ask Tom Rubin, who described himself as having over five decades of experience in transportation, what he thought about road diets. He was quite blunt in his answer, after first differentiating that “streets” are for local traffic and “roads” are to get from one place to another. Putting roads on a diet, meaning decreasing the lanes of traffic, pushes drivers on narrowed principal roads onto neighborhood streets not designed for through traffic, creating a “stroad” problem. 

Another problem Rubin noted with road diets and redesigns is that once the changes are made it is near impossible to undo the damage. That should be a warning to us, not to let up on the pressure to save Hopkins and the businesses we love there. 

He added that road diets create major public safety problems. Every minute of delay for an emergency vehicle means substantial increase in a fatal incident or permanent injury. Pedestrian deaths increased after road diets in Southern California, the opposite of the claim that road diets make streets safer. Rubin ended with, “fire chiefs are under great pressure to keep their mouths shut if they want to keep their jobs.” 

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If you haven’t responded to the Civic Center Survey, set aside a few minutes to send off your opinion. It doesn’t take long to look at the diagrams, check boxes and add comments if you choose. Survey link: https://qualtricsxmjph7lvfxl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aa71ggvGKG50ZIa 

If you wish to see the presentation from the consultants before completing the survey here is the link: https://qualtricsxmjph7lvfxl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aa71ggvGKG50ZIa 

The consultants for the Civic Center, Siegal & Strain Architects, seem set on a road diet for MLK Jr. Way. They also have in their plans new offices for city council in the Maudelle Shirek building (Old City Hall), CCCC members have had their eyes on using a restored Maudelle Shirek Building for community non-profits and a historical museum. I’d like to see space for indigenous people. 

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Book and Film Recommendations 

In a cruise through the New York Times before settling in for the final edit of this Diary, I saw the article that a Statue of Henrietta Lacks will replace a monument to Robert E. Lee in Roanoke, Virginia as part of a local project to recognize Black history in community spaces. 

Henrietta Lacks, a poor Black woman living not far from the Johns Hopkins Hospital, was treated for cervical cancer, but before diagnosis was made and treatment begun, a sample of her tumor was taken. For the first time, when all other attempts to culture cancerous cells, (grow cancerous cells in a lab) failed, the tumor cells from Henrietta Lacks grew and multiplied every 20 to 24 hours. The cell line was named HeLa. 

I didn’t read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot when it was published in 2010. It wasn’t until 2014 when it really sunk in how much I was missing by not reading books. That is when I went looking for a book club that focused on nonfiction and politics and couldn’t find one. It was a conversation over coffee with Barbara Ruffner that lead to starting a group that reads nearly 100% nonfiction on politics, race, climate and the environment. Barbara was a vibrant 88 when we started, but failing health caught up. 

Barbara always pulled our choices to Democratic Socialism, and it wasn’t long before we understood that we couldn’t read about politics without reading about race and racism. This review is dedicated to Barbara who passed away in October. 

The book is the story of Henrietta, her family, descendants, the research, researchers and travels and the persistence of Rebecca Skloot to put it altogether. 

Henrietta Lacks died at the young age of 31. The HeLa cells were used in the development of polio and COVID-19 vaccines, the study of leukemia, AIDS virus and cancer. HeLa cancer cells are the root of worldwide research studying the effects of toxins, drugs, hormones and viruses. 

Honoring Henrietta Lacks is even more meaningful after reading the The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks if you haven’t picked it up already. 

Film 

Senator Warnock just won re-election by a healthy margin over Hershel Walker and much was made of voter turnout and questioning whether there really was voter suppression. The film “Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman” written by Greg Palast produced by Maria Florio with Executive Producers Martin Sheen, George DiCaprio and Stephen Nemeth lays bare the impact of Georgia’s SB 202 “Election Integrity Act of 2021” and the disenfranchisement of Black voters in Georgia. Mail-in voting dropped by 81%. 

After seeing Greg Palast in person at a KPFA event, I always think of him as a man full of himself. I found the film unexpectantly informative and good and definitely worth watching especially because Georgia’s SB 202 is a bill that is and will be imitated elsewhere. 

The film is currently free online until January 1, 2023 at 11 pm. https://watch.showandtell.film/watch/vigilante-ga/ 

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