Tonight, Saturday 7/26
Party and screening of documentary "Bum's Paradise" about the albany landfill at the albany landfill

We are going to have a BIG party at the landfill this Saturday, July 26th!
We will be watching the landfill movie, Bum's Paradise, at the library
once the sun sets!  The film made around the time of the big eviction at
the Bulb back in 1999.  This is a truly amazing film.  After the film we
will discuss what is happening now, and what we are going to do to stop
the City from defacing this beautiful place.  come anytime, but find the
library around 5 pm or so, and please bring food, water, WARM CLOTHES AND
BLANKETS and books to donate if you can.

Directions to the landfill and the library:  from San Pablo avenue:  go
west on Buchanan street, up and over the train tracks, down and under the
freeway, and continue towards the bay.  You’ll see the beach, and 2 trails
headed further west out into the bay, this is the landfill.  Take the
trail that is right on the water’s edge and head out into the bay.  Go up
the hill and you’ll see a trail intersection, with 3 options.
Left/straight  goes to the castle, the hard right turn (almost 180
degrees) will take you back to the parking lot, so take the soft right
turn, the middle choice, the one that goes to the large driftwood woman
sculpture.  You are walking north now, you’ll see a wide path split off to
the left but stay going north, forward.  After the split you’ll see a
giant pine tree on your left, continue forward on the wide path as it
slopes down after passing the tree.  When the trail flattens out, you will
see a small path going off to the right, and this leads to the library.
Walk any of the small paths that meander east to the cliffside with a view
of the Albany Hill, Albany, and El Cerrito.   You should see some
driftwood sculptures and the library to your right.
We will put up signs and arrows, but not early in the day.

***Please invite your friends, how often do you get to see Bum’s Paradise
at the landfill?!

here are some interesting things that happenned in the last week at the
albany landfill.

1) several of you contacted City of Albany employees and city
councilpeople and got responses.  thanks for doing that!  if you haven't
sent your responses to me please do so we can compile them all for the
lawyers because each one has a little different info.

they basically say:  we are not evicting anyone nor taking out artwork.
the cops are simply enforcing the laws of the city, as they do in every
other park.

there are some lawyers working to get an injunction against the city for
writing these tickets because we feel that we can win in court on the
basis that albany doesn't have any homeless shelters nor money for a
temporary housing plan; thus, enforcing their camping ban would be seen as
an unlawful burden on neighboring cities.

2) we brought Joanne Wile, city councilmember, to see the landfillian
public library and she liked it very much.  Jimbow explained how he got a
ticket for building it and also for hanging beautiful fabric strips in the
trees and she was upset about that.  she said she will get me in contact
with some birdwatching/environmentalist group people because they will
love it too, and if we can get under their 'umbrella of legitimacy' as she
said it, then the library should be more protected from demolition by the
city workers.

3) on Saturday the 19th, joanne brought the city attorney to the landfill
to show HIM the library, unannounced to us.  they couldn't find it, and
luckily they ran into Osha Neumann!  Osha is a lawyer.  he showed them to
the library and questioned them about the tickets and the city attorney
said that he had not heard tickets had been issued at the landfill for
camping.

4) The Albany Waterfront Committee had a meeting on Monday the 14th and
they discussed the landfill for the first time in a while.  Usually they
talk about the beach, plateau, and what will happen if the racetrack
closes.  They said stuff like, ‘we need to start working towards carrying
out the eastshore state park general plan, let’s ask the state park for
money to either clear out concrete and rebar hazards, or let’s dump a lot
of dirt on top of dangerous stuff.”  They formed a subcommittee to talk
about specific developments that should happen at the Bulb!  The
subcommittee is smaller than half the committee, which means that it
doesn’t have to make its meetings public!  The person who went to the
meeting and told me all this info joined the subcommittee and is one of 3
people.   I will try  to join the subcommittee as well.

info: 510-689-8081