Marine Recruiting Center Leaving Berkeley: Agreement Reached with Landlord, City, and Protesters

WHEN: Tuesday, April 1, 12 noon
WHERE: Marine Recruiting Station, 64 Shattuck Square, Berkeley
WHO: Sasha Shamszad, landlord; Marines Manpower Division representative; CODEPINK spokesperson

Sasha Shamszad, landlord for the Marine Recruiting Center in Berkeley, has reached an amicable agreement with the Marines to redeploy from Berkeley. Details of the agreement will be outlined at the press conference.

"The situation was becoming untenable," says Mr. Shamszad. "The presence of the Marines sparking daily protests have had a negative impact on local businesses. The city has been forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in police overtime. And some groups have been calling for a national boycott of our city. So I sat down with representatives of the Marines and we worked out a solution."

"We just came out with a national productivity study by office, and the Recruiting Center in Berkeley was in the bottom ten percentile," says Michael Applegate, Director of the Marine Manpower Plans and Policy Division. "It's a three-person office in a high-rent district bringing in an average of only 1.4 recruits per month. This is just not a good use of taxpayer money. So we were happy to work out an agreement with Mr. Shamszad. For us, this has nothing to do with protests outside the station, but is simply an issue of strategic redeployment."

The protest group CODEPINK was delighted to hear the news. "While we still don't know the details, we are have happy to hear that the Marines will be closing their doors and respecting the anti-war values of the residents of Berkeley," said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin.

CONTACT: Shamszad Realty, 510-848-4100
Marine Office of Manpower Plans and Policies, 703-784-9231
CODEPINK, 415-342-6409

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