Save the Sunflower Path

I support the sentiment, but not in a way that would have negative impacts on residents and neighbors. Far better to focus a memorial in a place with more foot traffic and generally more accessible to the public.

This sunflower path has been here for the 20 years I have lived here. Why get rid of a positive message to put one the is controversial, political and tares down an existing neighborhood treasure. Go find another set of steps that are just that, steps. This is a landmark for our community that would be painted over. No!

I have lived in the area for 25 years. This is not a place for politics. Many of the names written on these steps earlier in the year were of people who either physically assaulted or drew weapons on the police and sadly paid for it with their lives. Children need to know that this type of behavior can have disastrous consequences and is not something to make a martyr out of someone, regardless of skin color, Let’s just keep it sunflowers and dinosaurs!

This is not the place for a political statement of any kind. There is already an existing art installation here. Please do not impact the property owners who already share this lovely area with us. We all need lovely neutral places to visit these days as we are constantly bombarded with BLM everywhere.

We enjoy the Sunflower Path as is!

Please do not alter Sunflower Pathway. I walk up these steps every day with my dog and bring visitors from afar to this special gem. We do not need another political statement that could potentially cause disruption to our neighborhood. This would be better suited somewhere else. I am not in support of this at all.

This should not be in a residential neighborhood, it is I’ll equipped and selfish to residence particularly those who would be directly impacted, their voice should carry the most weight! Keep politics to your own space not the communities

A neighborhood treasure!

I love the idea, but not in a residential neighborhood. When the chalk version was there, personally it felt very disrespectful to be walking on these victims names.

Already a beautiful place, welcoming everyone it should never become political, Oakland continues to face massive challenges, altering perfection to racist hate fuels community division just like ‘Nextdoor’, learning of this insanity proves proof there are residence with to much time on their hands. As a community we must help them find direction and purpose, their idol time could be spent mentoring in West Oakland and helping cleaning up the mess by lawlessness, only then will they actually make a difference, contain politics to your home!

Our family uses this space daily. Our 2.5 year old loves it as is. We’d like it to stay a neighborhood sanctuary.

5 years ago Featured

for years, the path has been a hidden treasure and labor of love and it would be nice to keep it out of a heated issue. most people in the area are already supporters of social justice and racial equality anyway.

we love these steps just as they are. It has been such a beautiful effort.

George peters

Agree this modification to the path is not conducive to a quiet neighborhood. I think this statement is better seen/heard in a more public space. This would be a very important project and highly visible at the New Howard Terminal Center for the A's should it get built.

To “Race Ism”— I agree this is an important issue that needs amplification. How about doing so in a way that does not s—- all over the time and effort a longtime resident devoted to entertaining the children of the area? There’s something downright sinister about new residents and Piedmont folks coming to tell longtime actual Oakland dwellers that we need to accommodate you when we were living here when this was a middle class area, long before Silicon Valley and Ivy League gentrifiers flooded a suddenly-hot area. Since we will be here long after the trendiness is gone and another trendy area has caught your interest and drawn you away, perhaps choose to impress your social group painting a staircase that has not been lovingly worked upon and cared for over the course of decades. Look at yourself and figure out your real motivations here. This is a power move. It’s not right. You may have more money but this is our only home, and what gives you the right to colonize it?

I have aged parents who use these steps daily. I am very concerned that paint, which is very slippery in rain, may make the steps hazardous for them and cause an injury. In addition, I know that many residents of the neighborhood use these steps for walking their dogs. It seems like it is almost a deliberate insult to victims of the police's excessive use of force to put those people's names in a spot where the organizers know dogs will routinely be urinating and defecting on them. I'm also really concerned that setting up a memorial in the neighborhood will create a rallying and kicking-off point for protests and marches. This is going to make vehicular traffic and parking in the neighborhood way worse than it is now. There are much better places for a memorial to be set up than on a functional stairway used for animals in a congested neighborhood! Don't dishonor the folks being memorialized by choosing a poor location to do it. Finally, the stairway is already an organically created work of art and delight for children, thanks to the volunteer efforts of neighbors. Destroying that good work to create a poorly chosen memorial that is better erected elsewhere seems more calculated to generate resentment than to celebrate the people being memorialized. It makes you wonder about the motives of the people seeking glory by leading the effort to destroy the current Sunflower Path. In sum, the Sunflower Path should be preserved and the memorial placed somewhere that is better suited to honoring the people being memorialized!

Defacing a comon walk way is GRAFFITI. Stop it before it starts. Defacing a neighborhood is unlawful.

5 years ago Featured

Sunflower Path is the only completed concrete stairway in our neighborhood. All of the others are dirt. If someone wishes to make a meaningful addition to our neighborhood, they should pave one of the other dirt paths and make that a memorial.

I love the Sunflower Path that has been made beautiful by our neighbor who lives next to it. For more than a decade she has donated her own money and labor toward making it a beautiful and artistic path. I walk the stairs of the path 2 - 3 times a week. It is joy to walk; I am always surprised and delighted when our neighbor has added a different new plant or artistic statuary such as the bullfrog mariachi band or a new stone lizard keeping an eye on you as you walk. It makes me happy. Children love the dinosaurs. It is the first place my grandchildren want to go when they visit me. It is NOT a sad place and is not an appropriate place for a memorial.