On Monday, June 22, Mayor Durkan asked for a meeting with leadership from the Capitol Hill Organized Protest. Leadership did not feel it was an appropriate time for the meeting to occur and asked to reschedule. Rather than negotiating a better time, the City shut off the water at Cal Anderson Park, leaving the people, structures, and garden of CHOP vulnerable. Water has since been restored, thanks to a swift response from the public. However, access to clean water is a basic human right, imperative to sustain health, safety, and human dignity. While aligned with the City’s response to reasonable requests from protestors this far, blocking access to water in retaliation for preserving the safety everyone involved is inhumane, inappropriately punitive, and childish.

We the people of Seattle, are petitioning that our governing bodies secure access to clean water for protestors in Cal Anderson Park. The water is used to sustain the community garden, provide free food to protestors and unhoused individuals, and maintain public health.

Lack of clean water is a threat to the community gardens, which have facilitated discussions about race, class, and inequality. The garden serves to restore food and land justice to Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities who have been directly impacted by gentrification and environmental racism in the Seattle area.

Should government officials decide to dismantle the garden that serves the Black Lives Matter movement in the Capital Hill Organized Protest (CHOP), no vandalization, disruption, nor any other harm of the gardens will occur by the hands of the following:

Seattle Police Department (SPD) 
SPD Affiliates
State Government Officials 
Private Entities via Federal and State Funds. 

We the people of Seattle, also petition that funds be reallocated from Seattle Police Department to provide an annual budget to establish and maintain a free access garden in Cal Anderson Park, run by paid onsite stewards from the BIPOC community. The stewardship will ensure the preservation of the community garden at Cal Anderson Park.

Amnesty for all protestors and community stakeholders in CHOP especially all those affiliated with the community garden project is a non-negotiable demand. 

In conclusion, the city owes the BIPOC communities of this region the preservation of the community garden at CHOP, and the safety and fair treatment of all those who maintain and benefit from it.