I recently ran across Emma Staniels’ article about the Southside Park Community Garden, published back in November 2008. I am excited to see the community garden flourish, and the positive impact it has had on the neighborhood. It is important to recall that this garden was won in court as a “replacement” of the Mandella Community Garden. The article made me realize that 5 years has passed since Midtown lost the Mandella Community Garden – many who live here now have never seen or heard of the place that was once a vibrant center of Midtown activity.

And so I believe a historical account is in order. I was a board member during the last painful months of our legal battle to save the garden from being developed into condos. The greatest lasting gift left behind by the Mandella garden is probably the enduring lifelong friendships that were forged by the effort to save it. It is also probably true that the greatest lesson to be learned is that these community resources of ours are so precious. The fact that something like a 30-year-old community garden can be defended valiantly – and still taken away, means that someday the Southside Park Garden may also be threatened by development – and may also have to be defended.

The following is a “reprint” of an article I wrote for Because People Matter” in the days following the Mandella Garden’s demise. There is some bitterness and anger in the piece, indicating the fresh open wound that our neighborhood sustained. Since then, there has been healing, and lots of change – People have moved on, and some have even moved.

Please consider this the first installment of a series on community gardening in Midtown Sacramento, which will include interviews with former Mandella gardeners, history about other community gardens on the grid, and an update on the Fremont Community Garden - which occupies but a small piece of soil where the Mandella Garden once was.

Michael Feliciano

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Published in "Because People Matter" - January Issue

CADA Does The Big Dig
Mandella Community Witnesses Destruction of Garden
By Michael Feliciano

On Saturday, November 8th, 2004, a crew hired by CADA (Capitol Area Development Authority,) entered the 30 year old Mandella Community Garden and laid waste to the remaining vegetation at the site – which occupies the block of 14th-15th Streets, along Q Street. A token 1/3 of Mandella garden was spared, ostensibly to serve the new condo owners. The ground was essentially shaved and an assortment of mature fruit trees ripped from the ground and fed through a chipper. Graders then scraped what is now a crater where the garden used to be. CADA has stated that the dirt was moved as part of a soil remediation plan, but the net result is that the Mandella Garden as it has existed for these last 30 years is no more.

"You can take the people out of the garden, but you can't take the garden out of the people."

The Mandella Garden was not just about fruits and vegetables…but in fact served as a center of community for many downtown residents. Peeking through the bars of the iron fence on 14th and Q, onto the bare earth where very soon 118 upscale condos will stand, one can see the profound reality that has arrived after two years of believing that the garden could be saved. Following an intense struggle to block the Fremont MEWS project, the gardeners, activists, and innocent bystanders in our community will collectively face the pain, and witness as this beloved garden is swallowed by the hungry beast that is CADA. It is something that everyone understands, but only a courageous few in these times feel empowered to stand up to…the march of dollar-power, the forces of gentrification, and the same vibration of "manifest destiny" that has displaced indigenous peoples and damned precious wild rivers.

The loss of yet another chunk of precious urban green space would be tragedy enough. But there is a deeper loss, as the residents of Sacramento face injustice on multiple levels. The argument in support of "smart-growth," and urban infill has been a valid one, but considering that the Mandella Garden is recognized as downtown's 2nd largest producer of oxygen, it seems any number of vacant lots in the downtown area could have been chosen without the huge loss of plants and trees. 14th and Q is a hot location now that downtown is hip and desirable…amidst swelling land values and incentives to develop, those that deal in real estate take little time to consider that we are building ourselves into a concrete corner, by sacrificing the living earth…pillaging high-density plant-life without regard for the sacred relationship between the land and the people, the connection between ourselves, our food, and the cycles of nature.

Certainly, the loss of a suitable place for residents to garden has been minimized. The replacement site selected by CADA is located beneath the I-5/I-80/HWY 50 junction, one of the busiest freeway interchanges in the state…a demonstration of ignorance, and skewed priorities. The hope that a community garden would actually flourish in that setting still leaves residents asking "why can't Sacramento have two community gardens?" Even if the plants actually grow beneath the gridlock and freeway emissions, could the community garden culture thrive, with noise levels that prevent friendly talk among gardeners? Will the community be safe gardening there, choking on rush-hour fumes?

Let's ask CADA, the champions of public health. Last October, in a sudden display of concern for the gardener's health and safety, CADA ordered the gathering and testing of soil samples from the Mandella Garden. Mysteriously, toxins were found, and the gardeners were abruptly evicted, despite the fact that the toxins were limited to shallow hotspots that many argue could have been eliminated with organic soil remediation processes. When Mandella gardeners requested to conduct independent soil testing, access was denied. When the gardeners filed a lawsuit identifying the eviction as illegal, CADA filed countersuit. When Mandella gardeners demanded that a Human Health Risk Assessment be performed to determine what health risks these toxins actually posed to the gardeners, CADA refused. The CADA that expressed concern for public welfare to the media is the same CADA that had to be forced by lawsuit to initiate and properly complete a project-specific Environmental Impact Report. To this day, they never fully studied the effects of the increased volume of automobiles on the Downtown environment.

Most of the gardeners would agree that these multiple rounds of legal kung-fu are more toxic than the soil in the garden could ever be, but also acknowledge the major achievement that a lawsuit victory represents. This is a property management agency that enjoys joint authority with the City of Sacramento - and control over a threateningly huge percentage of the Downtown rental market.

The satisfaction of enforcing CADA's legal obligation to perform an Environmental Impact Report brings with it a responsibility shared by all of this community, as the process of overseeing the EIR process will be ongoing. Indeed, the environmental impact is happening now, but the court-ordered Environmental Impact Report is not. And so it is that the spirit of Ron Mandella lives on. Mandella, who helped establish the garden in the early 70’s, was a state worker. He was stabbed to death while defending a female coworker from an attacking robber. The garden was renamed in his honor, and perhaps the struggle to hold government agencies accountable for their ignorance and relentless transfer of public resources into the hands of private interests…perhaps this represents a similar push for justice. We do it in memory of Ron Mandella.

It has been a long struggle, and the last couple of years have been intense. In this past year, the fight to save this garden has included grassroots fundraising without even access to the garden, and incredibly, over $10,000 dollars has been generated to support legal efforts. This reminds us what incredible things a few citizens-turned-activists can do. We can recall the Julia Butterfly Hill rally at the garden, and her leading of the march on Sacramento City Hall…the final haunted Halloween event in the garden, jam-packed with kids of all ages, drummers and firedancers, just days before the gardeners were (illegally) evicted.

We now appreciate the climactic nature of this summer's infamous garden occupation and lockdown, which was organized in partnership with Sonoma County's Green-bloc, to coincide with the USDA Ministerial Conference. With police choppers hovering overhead and TV news crews scrambling for footage, 100 police clad in riot gear surrounded the Mandella Garden and forcefully extracted 10 "green-thumbed villains" arm-chained together in solidarity.

In these moments, our community received the spirit of Mother Jones.

This July, following the lockdown, I moved into a Victorian caddy-corner to the 14th street corner of the Mandella garden, and spent the rest of the summer anticipating from my front porch, the triumphant day when the gates would be unlocked, and the organic soil remediation would begin. Instead, my sweet view of the garden has been transformed into a "view from the bleachers" from which I will gaze upon the noisy construction project. Sacramento is loosing something very special, and it hurts to watch.

With the new crater at 15th and Q, we see yet again that public power structures have less to do with representing the public, as real estate values climb. It should be noted that the City Council, and other local politicians expressed much support for the Mandella Community Garden early on - People like Mayor Heather Fargo, Senator Debra Ortiz, Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, Ray Tretheway and others would be deserving of kudos for their initial support. But in the wake of the bulldozers, some of these politicians have earned our disdain for waffling, passing the buck, or just plain standing by and doing nothing when the fertilizer hit the fan. I believe the term one local official used was "I support the garden…in theory." Yes, well…we will all be sure to select their names on our ballots in the next election…but only in theory.