Need your help to protect Oakland public land from private takeover

[Mara Schechter]

Hello all! I was recently a North Oakland resident, and now I live just east of Lake Merritt. I've been involved in Transition communities on the east coast and am excited to be part of this group! I've been volunteering on a local campaign and am reaching out to sustainability-minded folks because we need your help:

Oakland’s beautiful and wild Knowland Park is under threat, and we need your help at an important City Council vote. Right now, the free public park is home to a range of wildlife, including threatened species, native grasslands, and woodlands.

However, the Oakland Zoo is trying to take over the heart of the park–77 acres!–which would displace local wildlife...for an exhibit about species that are regionally extinct due to development. What?!

This would also mean privatizing our public park, and since the zoo has been working behind closed doors with local officials for years, the City Council just might let them do this. Unless we all stand up.

We need YOU to come to Oakland’s City Council Meeting the night of Tues 11/18, to protect this important public park from privatization.

For years, this political process has been behind closed doors, away from the public eye. But this is PUBLIC parkland, and we should have a say. The zoo will be busing in its employees, so it is absolutely critical that we turn out a BIG crowd.

The Oakland City Council will meet on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18 at 5:30 pm at Oakland City Hall to vote on whether to grant the zoo additional park acreage. The zoo is trying to take even MORE parkland from the public to “mitigate” for destroying the best of it...and if the Council votes for the zoo on 11/18, that's it. It would set a terrible precedent.

Don’t stand for this. Please RSVP to come to City Hall on Tues 11/18 -- last chance to protect our park!

Please join us at the City Council meeting to tell the City Council what the wildlife protection agencies recommended in the first place, and the public has been demanding for years:  move the development elsewhere—and preserve the park for all the resident wildlife, including the prime habitat for the threatened Alameda Whipsnake, rather than having to mitigate for its loss.

Sign up here if you can come, or want to help out: bit.ly/knowlandmeeting.

 

Thanks for helping us win this fight!

Best,

Mara

P.S.: Check out more at www.saveknowland.org, including beautiful photos of the park!