Public Comment

In 1969, I was among the many that originally built the park. I’m afraid (or delighted) that we didn’t have either a committee nor, unfortunately, the university’s permission. What we did have was... people. People directly affecting the park. Voting with their presence and participation. 

I spent many, many years away from Berkeley, only returning for some visits, until about a year and a half ago. During that time, I spent a great deal of time in the park. Days, evenings, even quite late at night. I’d make a point of walking through the park to and from Telegraph Avenue and where I was living a couple of blocks up the hill. Sometimes I’d just go out for a stroll, like on pleasant full moon nights, and sit for a spell in the park enjoying the space and touch of nature, perhaps sipping an espresso coffee or snack from the nearby cafes. So I’m having some trouble understanding quite what all the concern is supposedly about “safety.” 

No one ever bothered me. Well, unless some panhandling or offering of stuff for sale has to be considered as bothering. In fact, in all that time, the only people I’ve seen bothering one another has been between people that apparently know one another otherwise. But that’s usually the case, isn’t it? And that wasn’t too often, either. What is not the case, in my experience, is that the park is at all “unsafe.” 

Are we sure that some folks aren’t mistaking “no unsavory people” for “safety”? Because, yes, it’s not uncommon at all to see or be in proximity to any number of different kinds of people, in all manner of conditions. Many of these people could easily be regarded as unsavory, by most standards. Except theirs, of course. 

And some of these people, again in my experience, have been some of the friendliest—even generous—people I’ve ever run across anywhere. For instance, scruffy homeless people that offer to share or give food to complete strangers. Reckon the value of that as a percentage of their net worth and compare with the committee members’ comparable contributions in the park. 

Now, granted, there obviously are things that also go on there that I understand folks find objectionable. That clearly includes drug exchange, even use. And homeless folks camping out, not always too artfully. But that much doesn’t seem “unsafe” other than to those doing that. This also is maybe more accurately among the unsavory category. 

I might have some trouble imagining just who these fearful, safety-concerned persons are, since I’d have trouble matching them up with any of the many people I’ve seen actually in the park. But then, anyone who goes there and spends time there at all probably can see for themselves that it’s no more “unsafe” than most anywhere, and I happen to have found it to be demonstrably safer than many other places around the area. 

Maybe these people are suffering the dangers of their own thinking, imagination and judgmental stereotyping of other people not like themselves? Even people that would welcome them amiably, or simply leave them be—that is, if they ever might someday just go spend any time there. Voting with their own presence and participation there also could be a most direct, manifest commitment to supporting safety. While they are there. Among the people. At the park. That’s what it was all about, and still is, if that’s what they care about. 

Christopher Kohler is an Oakland resident.