We're sending the petition to the Mayor, Council, and candidates
Thank you to everyone who signed this petition, and to everyone who shared it with friends and neighbors who live and work in Berkeley.
Given the events of the past few days — the city's partial clearing of the Harrison Street encampment — we're moving forward now rather than waiting. When launched, we were hoping to get 150-200 people to sign on; as of now, we have nearly 220!
We'll be forwarding the petition to:
• Mayor Adena Ishii
• Every member of the Berkeley City Council
• All candidates running for the four Council seats up for election this November (Districts 1, 4, 7, and 8)
• Other relevant city officials
• Members of the local press
The petition itself will stay open. If you haven't shared it yet, please do — and if you have, feel free to give it one more push. More signatures only strengthens the case.
The most effective thing you can do right now: contact these officials yourself, in your own words. A personal email from a constituent carries real weight — often more than a petition signature. This matters most if you live in Districts 1, 4, 7, or 8, since those are the seats being decided this fall and the candidates are actively listening for exactly this kind of input. Not sure which district you're in? Here's the official city map: https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Berkeley-City-Council-Districts.pdf
Contact information:
Mayor and current City Councilmembers (all verified via the city's official roster):
• Mayor Adena Ishii — mayor@berkeleyca.gov
• District 1, Rashi Kesarwani — rkesarwani@berkeleyca.gov
• District 2, Terry Taplin — ttaplin@berkeleyca.gov
• District 3, Ben Bartlett — bbartlett@berkeleyca.gov
• District 4, Igor Tregub — itregub@berkeleyca.gov
• District 5, Shoshana O'Keefe — sokeefe@berkeleyca.gov
• District 6, Brent Blackaby — bblackaby@berkeleyca.gov
• District 7, Cecilia Lunaparra — clunaparra@berkeleyca.gov
• District 8, Mark Humbert — mhumbert@berkeleyca.gov
• To reach the entire Council and Mayor at once: council@berkeleyca.gov
Candidates for the November 2026 election (Districts 1, 4, 7, and 8): campaign contact information isn't centralized the way official city emails are, and we don't want to pass along an address we can't verify. The most reliable way to reach each candidate is through their campaign website or social media, where current contact information is posted directly by their campaigns. If you're in one of these four districts, a quick search of the candidate's name plus "for Berkeley City Council" will get you there fast.
Someone in former Mayor Arreguin's office once told me that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Let's make sure ours squeaks loud enough to get real, lasting action — not just one difficult partial closure after a year in court, but a policy that keeps this from happening again anywhere else in the city.
Thank you again for standing up on this.