Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of The Dog Who Couldn't Stop Loving, Dogs Never Lie About Love and When Elephants Weep signs the petition to save off-leash access to Albany Beach and Bulb on March 12 at the Berkeley Art Center.

Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife and The Chinese Siamese Cat Adds her name to the petition on April 18.

We, the undersigned, support multi-use public parks in the East Bay and call on the East Bay Regional Park District, the California State Parks and Recreation Department, the California Coastal Conservancy, and the City of Albany to:
  1. Actively support off-leash dog-walking in inclusive, multi-use parks that are accessible to the mobility-challenged, convenient to dense urban populations, and more proportional to the many households with dogs.
  2. Continue the almost 30-year tradition of the Albany Bulb, Neck, Plateau and Beach as unstructured, multi-use open space for off-leash dog-walking, hiking, nature-watching, socializing, creativity, kayaking, windsurfing, kiteboarding and fishing. Include all stakeholders, and especially current park users, in any planning for this area. Value it as a unique, urban-edge park; preserve it as an evolving laboratory for the way Nature reclaims the land; and largely limit development to disability access, sanitation, and stabilization of the landfill. Let Nature be in charge!

Download the petition (.pdf format) (.doc format)