More from the article below. !!!!!! As someone who lived near there for a number of years, I'm so happy to see this news. Power to Sogorea Te'

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"The city of Berkeley will purchase Spenger’s parking lot and transfer the property to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust as part of a recent settlement agreement over the contested plot of land in West Berkeley.

The Berkeley City Council unanimously approved an ordinance today authorizing the purchase, making Berkeley among the first in the country to outright return land to Indigenous people. The city will purchase the property with $25.5 million from Sogorea Te’, an Indigenous-led land trust based in Oakland, and $1.5 million from the city’s general fund.

The decision appears to mark the end of a years-long legal battle over the property at 1900 Fourth St. between the city and developer Ruegg & Ellsworth. The parties in the case filed a notice of settlement in Alameda County Superior Court Friday.

For years, the legal battle pit honoring Indigenous heritage against the need for housing during the Bay Area’s housing crisis. The outcome — returning land to Indigenous control — comes when the Indigenous land back movement is taking off.

The money for the purchase comes primarily from the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Bolstered by a $20 million contribution from the Kataly Foundation, a family foundation funded by Regan Pritzker of the Hyatt hotel chain and her husband Chris Olin, Sogorea Te’ appears to be the best-funded organization in the nationwide land-back movement, based on tax records reviewed by Berkeleyside.

Efforts to develop the property, a parking lot once owned by Spenger’s Fish Grotto, date back two decades. Developers faced opposition from some Ohlone, who protested the development of a sacred shellmound site. In 2018, Berkeley blocked a streamlined permit to build housing on the site. They had been embroiled in a legal battle since.

Beneath the parking lot, adjacent to an upscale commercial area in West Berkeley, some Ohlone say, is the last undeveloped part of the oldest shellmound and village site around the Bay, a ceremonial site and fishing village.

“It’s one of the most culturally significant sites for the Lisjan people and to have it protected forever, I think I’m without words,” said Corrina Gould, a co-director of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Gould also leads Confederated Villages of Lisjan (pronounced Le-shawn), a group of seven tribes across the Bay Area that was involved in the lawsuit alongside the city of Berkeley...

A plan for the property is still in the works, but Gould has expressed interest in an Ohlone memorial on the site, according to court records.

Aspirations for the site include a mixture of green space, a place for an Ohlone ceremony and possibly even a burial site for remains [rematriated] from UC Berkeley, according to Berkeley Councilmember Sophie Hahn.

“When there are historic harms, I believe it is incumbent on those of us in positions of authority to do everything in our power, to provide reparations and redress,” Hahn said of the decision."

-via Berkeleyside, March 12, 2024

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Note: If you live in the Bay Area, you can support Land Back efforts by paying shuumi, a voluntary land tax, to the Ohlone people through Sogorea Te' Land Trust, which does a lot of really important and revolutionary land back work.

“What will I be if I don’t graduate/don’t get a promotion/don’t get my shit together/don’t make this relationship work?” You would be a perfectly normal human being who is inherently valuable and who possesses many talents and good traits

“What if I fail even when I tried my very best?” The world keeps turning and you will find many other things you will succeed at.

I EDITED THIS AS FAST AS I COULD