Discussions to retain the school for the Blind in Berkeley is an important factor for the Blind staff and students.  For the Deaf, not being able to hear did not change their mobility to access their community as it did for the Blind population.

For many Blind students and staff, the dependency of retaining the knowledge of the perfectly gridded city such as Berkeley takes years to perfect.  Leading activist of the Blind Employee Council and Blind community member, John Di Francesco, pressures California’s Department of Education President, Wilson Riles, to appoint a proper Berkeley site to host the school for the Blind through multiple letters.

One such site John Di Francesco felt fit is the Gill Tract.

The Gill Tract, a large plot of land nestled between the Berkeley and Albany border which the University uses for agricultural research, began to be the preferred site to keep the Blind school within the Berkeley city limits.

Wilson Riles believes the farmland of the Gill Tract would be a feasible site for the Blind, but due to being owned by the University, the idea was quickly dismantled as the educational agricultural experience and financial gain is an important factor for the University to maintain the site.

Not to mention, from the later Daily Cal article expressing the original 1922 idea for UC Berkeley to use the Deaf and Blind school sites as an agricultural research area.  The University willingly takes land, but refuses to sacrifice the underdeveloped land that later shrunk the Gill Tract drastically to provide Albany School District an elementary school, additional student family housing, in recent years a few retail stores and a senior living facility.