Homeless Live at Union Point Park

Homeless Live at Union Point Park

While once true it was a favorite family destination, now it is a homeless encampment.

Union Point Park

In describing Oakland’s Union Point Park as “a favored destination for family gatherings on warm spring and summer days [“Journey Through Jingletown,” June], you have done your readers a disservice, a very dangerous one. While once true, Union Point Park has been ceded by the city of Oakland to well over a hundred itinerate campers … Rather than a “popular stop for casual bicycling buddies,” it has devolved into a no-go zone for both the police and public alike to be avoided at all costs. The Bay Area citizens have lost another public space jewel to governmental indifference.

 Dan Westerlin 

A Tradition Continues

Thank you for Angela Hill’s great article, “Calling the Next Generation of Park Rangers,” in April. It is wonderful to see the five-decade tradition of interdisciplinary environmental field programs at Merritt College continuing in such a thoughtful way. For an old timer, it is especially exciting that the environmental justice course begun in 1992 is expanding and also that marine biology is coming back. I believe that Merritt sold its small marine education vessel in the late 1970s when Charles Ford was the marine biologist.

Robin Freeman, Chair Emeritus, Environmental Management and Technology, Merritt College

Faces of the East Bay