The Voices Of History Shouting Against The Winds Of Progress

There is something that has been troubling about the Rankin Park renovation. It isn’t so much the amount of grading that is taking place, though it is indeed shocking to see every blade of grass in that familiar park bulldozed over. But it will be replaced, and when the park is finally renovated by next spring, it will no doubt be a vast improvement over what was an aging and long-of-tooth facility.

But among the people who spoke out against the project were a couple of very quiet but adamant voices who claimed that part of the project being bulldozed was actually an archeological site of some significance. For reasons of their own, the owners of these voices did not want to come forward. But they were clear in their position, and very certain that, for whatever reasons, the city was for all intents and purposes destroying a site that held clues to the history of the first people to live in our area.

No one ever claimed the site was a burial ground, or one of any major historical significance. But until it could be examined by archeologists, there is no way to really know what’s under the ground there. And now, of course, there is no way to know at all.

And here is the problem: history is always competing with progress. There are voices clamoring for more, better, newer. And our government agencies don’t exist to protect our historical resources, particularly. They are there to guide the creation of new development, to steer the ship of state into the untested waters of the future. There are guidelines and rules for government agencies to follow to ensure that historical resources are protected, but those rules often compete with deadlines for construction and spending.

For instance, the Rankin Park renovation needed to get started this summer, so that certain aspects of the project could be completed before the rainy season began. There are many other park projects that need to be done, and there is a timeline. The City Council and the public are watching this project carefully, and city staff is accountable for its timely completion. So city staff prepared what is known as a Negative Declaration, stating that the renovation project would have no negative environmental effect on the city. Part of that declaration is that no historical sites would be harmed in the process.

And therein is the problem. There are voices saying that a historical site has been harmed in the process. But the list of those sites are not made public – you have to be a licensed archeologist to get them, because the agencies charged with cataloguing these sites do not want the general public digging them up, and rightfully so.

But it makes monitoring these sites very difficult. City engineer Tim Tucker has said several times that work crews have found nothing in the way of historical artifacts. But those crews aren’t trained or paid to look for those things, and I have heard many stories of construction crews purposely covering up evidence of an archeological site just so the job won’t be stopped while archeologists are called in to dig. There have been no such claims on this particular project, but since the public is not allowed on the construction site, it’s not possible to monitor.

The city is supposed to check with the agencies that catalogue these sites prior to construction. Was that done here? I don’t believe so. Tucker said he has spoken to East Bay Regional Park District, which has assured him that they know of no archeological site in the area of the Rankin Park project. But EBRPD is not one of those cataloguing agencies.

Patch called a couple of organizations that deal with this issue, but got nowhere. Meanwhile, the project proceeds, and if there is any historic site there, it’s probably gone by now.

History has a quieter voice than progress. But it is just as important a voice. We need to know what came before as a guidepost to what’s coming now. When those two voices conflict, it is often history’s voice that is drowned out.

Let’s hope that didn’t happen here.