My latest article in the East Bay Express appeared on the EBX blog, Seven Days, on Oct. 20th:
In Fremont, the East Bay Regional Parks District is seeking to increase access to a trendy hiking trail by constructing a parking lot atop land sacred to the region’s indigenous people.
At a tense meeting late last month, some 75 Ohlone people and supporters filled the EBRPD’s chambers in south Oakland to decry plans for a 300-space parking lot at Mission Peak Regional Preserve in Fremont.
The activists argue that numerous cultural and burial sites of the Chochenyo and Tamyen Ohlone are located at Mission Peak. They say Regional Parks staff has repeatedly dismissed objections to the location of the planned parking lot.
“I and my family do not want anything built there,” Ohlone elder Ruth Orta, 82, of Newark told the Parks District directors at the meeting. “This is our sacred place in this part of the world.”
Nevertheless, the district’s directors voted seven-to-zero in favor of the new parking lot. Several referred to the decision as “difficult.” Click here to keep reading @ eastbayexpress.com >>