BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Berkeley, an eclectic California city renowned for tie-dyed hippies and high-brow intellectuals, is experiencing a 1960s flashback triggered by People's Park, a landmark that has served as a counterculture touchstone, political stepping stone and refuge for homeless people.
“Our plan will meet multiple interests to preserve the park, create urgently needed student housing, and provide permanent housing for unhoused and low-income individuals,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ wrote in an email sent to university alumni and other supporters earlier this week. University spokesman Dan Mogulof declined a request to interview Christ.
The glaring shortage is mainly why city officials back the university’s plan, including city Councilmember Rigel Robinson, who represents the People’s Park area. That set the stage for rebellion. At a rally outside UC Berkeley’s administration building, incoming student body President Dan Siegel urged the crowd to “take the park.”
Then Reagan, who had vowed “to clean up the mess in Berkeley” during his victorious 1966 gubernatorial campaign, called in military troops. Before an uneasy truce was reached May 30, 1969, hundreds more were arrested and, in another infamous moment, an Army helicopter sprayed a crowd with what authorities called tear gas but others insisted was an even more dangerous substance.
Reagan “wanted to wipe out the social and political history of Berkeley and now the university is carrying it forward,” Smith said Aug. 3 while construction crews used bulldozers and buzz saws to topple most of the park’s trees, including some that predated the school’s purchase 54 years ago.
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