Sogorea Te' Land Trust has shared a press release about receiving the creek and lands that are adjacent to the Ruby Meadow development. They offer a photo opportunity on 12/3/24 at 10:30 AM. We worked hard to save the meadow and it is gone. We can be grateful that the adjacent creek will be protected by indigenous people forever. Join at 10:30 AM this morning 12/3/24 if you like at 1451 Crescent Ave, which is the entrance to the conservation easement. Here is the Sororea Te' press release: https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/2024/11/24/land-back-news/

While we are joyous and grateful to Sogorea Te' and the Ohlone Confederated Villages of Lisjan, most Save Ruby Meadow supporters do not believe that Eden Housing, Inc. can ever make up for destroying Ruby Meadow. Here is the neighborhood's Save Ruby Meadow perspective:

Ruby Meadow Redemption?

On Ruby Street there was once a meadow next to the creek, in a small Castro Valley neighborhood with no sidewalks. Neighbors could stroll by the meadow and smell the moist earth. There was mystery in the trees, so tall and dense. Interwoven bird songs formed complex melodies. Deer gathered under giant oaks. After dusk, small red bats came out to eat insects. When the rains came, the grassy meadow changed to pools. Many animal relatives simply lived their lives in the meadow. It was the Ruby Meadow habitat and is now paved over. Below it is the San Lorenzo Creek

Covertly, a billion-dollar housing corporation focused on destroying Ruby Meadow. The idea came originally from the County Supervisor and staff, who saw ruby meadow as leftover freeway lands and easy takings. It is cheaper to build on pristine habitat rather than to clean up a blighted brownfield site. Once alerted, neighbors, who didn’t agree on everything else, did agree that Ruby Meadow was precious and must be saved. Public meeting rooms were packed to overflowing and many gave personal testimony about the importance of saving Ruby Meadow to them. Tribal representatives spoke up. The County Planning Director overheard to a developer: “we didn’t expect this much opposition.” 

Over 7200 of us signed this petition to save Ruby Meadow. When the pandemic hit and neighbors needed to learn to use the internet to listen and speak up to save Ruby Meadow, they did. The pandemic effects intensified, and neighbors struggled, with all they had, to save Ruby Meadow. Seven community groups appealed the County’s decision to destroy Ruby Meadow. People joined in ceremony under the trees; others danced alone in the meadow. Neighbors and the local Audubon Society hired a professional biologist who wrote a detailed report. Nothing seemed to matter, and the housing developer insisted they had the right to pave Ruby Meadow, “because we own it.” Several attorneys helped to frame legal arguments to save Ruby Meadow.  But attorneys also suffered from COVID impacts and wildfires, and when the time was critical to sue, no attorneys were available. A neophyte neighbor filed the CEQA lawsuit to save Ruby Meadow. The judge refused to hear the case due to minor clerical errors in filing that were rectified (Case No. HG20082092). 

With deep pain, community members imagined past the impending destruction, toward any way that any good could come of destroying Ruby Meadow. Two main ideas arose: 1) respect the hundred doomed trees and 2) protect the creek by seeking its original caretakers. Grove Way resident, Dr. Ann E. Maris, a biochemist, connected the housing developer and the local tree recycling company that could repurpose the hundred slaughtered Ruby Meadow trees (https://www.bayarearedwood.com Most importantly, Dr. Maris sought to get the creek back into indigenous hands, specifically the urban indigenous women led Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, named for the creeks. The developer agreed to allow the trees to be repurposed and to offer the creek lands back to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.

The developer could not build in the creek lands, which are a required restoration site for environmental damage that Caltrans did elsewhere. The mandatory restoration had failed inspection and Caltrans was required to repeat the restoration. If the 238 freeway plans (1957-2010) had gone through, Ruby Meadow and additional acreage around the creek would have been protected as mitigation for the 238 freeway damage. The creek is full of trash and the mistreated habitat is decimated. The housing developer did not want its creek responsibility, County flood control declined to take over responsibility, and the State of California Department of Transportation had failed. Accepting the burden of perpetual responsibility for the creek was a huge ask for the tribes, no matter its sacred life connection.

Corinna Gould, tribal spokesperson and Sogorea Te’ leader, cared enough to step in and take on this very difficult situation. The sweat lodges and pow-wow tree that early newspapers describe here at the creek are gone. 500-year-old cooking hearths were excavated nearby that had nourished native ancestors on their travels between the bay and the hills (Site CA-ALA-566). Two hundred fifty years ago, the Spanish Anza expedition documented first seeing native people here on the creek (Anza Expedition Camp #98) near six villages. The creek lands remain, but last year, the housing developer killed a hundred trees to pave over Ruby Meadow. When Corinna heard a neighbor crying about the horribleness of the destruction, she beautifully said, “Let’s try to make it not so horrible.” Thank you, Corrina Gould and Sogorea Te’ Land Trust for coming back and offering hope that the future may not be as horrible as we expected.