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Bad News from Berkeley
(reposted from the Berkeley Daily Planet at http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-07-17/article/30643?headline=Judge-Rules-for-UC-Berkeley-in-Oak-Grove-Case)
Judge Rules for UC Berkeley in Oak Grove Case
by Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 22, 2008
Judge Rules for UC Berkeley in Oak Grove Case
by Richard Brenneman
Tuesday July 22, 2008
Berkeley’s treesitters and Memorial Stadium neighbors who had sued to block construction of a gym at the site of the adjacent oak grove were dealt a resounding setback Tuesday.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller issued a judgment that upholds the university’s plans for a four-level gym at the grove site and hits the litigants—including the city and the late City Councilmember Dona Spring—with an order that they pay most of the university’s legal bill.
Her order also ends, on July 29, the injunction which has blocked construction and the destruction of the grove. Construction could begin immediately after that date unless the plaintiffs are able to win a stay from the state appellate court.
She also divided costs for the litigation, which produced over 40,000 pages of documentation and lasted 18 months, with 15 per cent to be paid by the university and the remaining 85 percent divided equally between:
• The city of Berkeley, represented by Sacramento attorney Harriet Steiner;
• The Panoramic Hill Association, represented by Alameda attorney Michael Lozeau, and
•A group of plaintiffs represented by Oakland attorney Stephan Volker, which includes Spring, the California Oak Foundation and several other Berkeley residents.
Just what those costs will include remains uncertain, with one university official stating that attorney fees probably wouldn’t be included. Volker agreed.
The judgment and order, which follow Miller’s June 18 decision on the case, don’t hand the university an unequivocal victory.
The judge rejected a claim by the university that the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction within 50 feet of active earthquake faults, does apply to UC construction projects.
That decision won’t affect the gym project, since the university eliminated three features connecting with gym project with the stadium which Judge Miller had ruled in June were governed by the law.
She also gave the city a minor victory, denying the university’s contention that traffic, noise and other impacts from a planned seven additional events at the stadium were unknowable. The university sidestepped the issue by a decision to drop the planned events.
“We are very pleased by this decision,” said Dan Mogulof, the university’s executive director for public affairs.
“We see it as a vindication and validation of the process which led to our decision about where and how to build a facility that is absolutely necessary for the safety and well-being of our student athletes,” he said.
Volker said he will be filing an appeal on behalf of the plaintiffs he represents within the next few days, though he couldn’t speak for the city or the Panoramic Hill Association.
The appeal has to be filed within the next seven days, while the injunction is still in effect, in order to win an automatic 20-day continuation of the injunction, he said.
“It is our belief the judge misread the law and has misapprehended the facts of the case,” said Volker.
“The public has a vital interest in preserving the outstanding oak grove, and we believe we will be ultimately vindicated by the courts,” he said.
Steiner is on a vacation in Hawaii and was unavailable for comment, and Lozeau is out of state attending a family reunion, Volker said, while Zach Cowan, Berkeley’s acting city attorney, is scheduled to be out of town Wednesday through Friday.
But City Councilmember Linda Maio said the council will meet in closed session Thursday, “and we won’t recess until we’re done with this. Clearly, there are issues for us to deal with.”
Maio said the recent adoption of the state’s green building code also raises new issues.
Doug Buckwald, Director of Save the Oaks at the Stadium, issued this statement on Tuesday night:
"Today (Tuesday, July 22, 2008) at 4:30 pm, Judge Barbara Miller issued her final judgment in the case of the Memorial Oak Grove dispute in Berkeley, California. The timing of her decision is highly prejudicial to the Petitioners, and this will make it difficult for them to exercise their legal right to an appeal.
"Judge Miller issued a ruling which dissolves the injunction protecting the trees in seven days (calendar days, not business days) and so the university will be able to cut the trees down unless an appellate court issues a new injunction. That means that Petitioners will have to get a motion into appellate court as soon as possible to have any chance of saving the trees. Petitioners’ difficulty is magnified by the fact that two out of three of their attorneys are away on previously-scheduled vacations, and so they will be unable to participate fully in the process.
"Also, the Berkeley City Council will be in a summer recess after tonight’s council meeting. They, too, will have to grapple with making a decision about how to proceed in a very brief amount of time.
“Unfortunately, the timing of the court's decision makes it particularly difficult for us to proceed to the next step in the judicial process. The ruling has forced our legal team to rush into court with minimum time to consult with all clients and to prepare legal papers.
“I believe that we have a strong case to take to the appellate court. It would be a real tragedy to lose the beloved oak grove now, and then win in court later when it would be too late to save the trees. You can’t put stumps and sawdust back in the ground and make things all better again. Those beautiful, majestic oaks would be gone forever.
“Irrespective of the unfair time constraints of the judicial process, the university still could choose to do the right thing and spare the trees until the appellate court rules. That approach would be cooperative and would ensure that the legitimate interests of the city and community were not shortchanged on a legal technicality.
“I can only hope that university officials have listened to the many people in this community who have spoken out in favor of the trees for the past two years--a coalition which includes a broad spectrum of Berkeley society--and they will realize the severe and lasting harm that will come of any rash action on their part to cut the trees down while we may still be standing at the courtroom door asking to be heard. Ignoring the wishes of the community like this would be counter to its paramount obligation to the public it serves. If it does so, the University of California will be forever stained in the eyes of many people who have supported it in the past. “
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Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller issued a judgment that upholds the university’s plans for a four-level gym at the grove site and hits the litigants—including the city and the late City Councilmember Dona Spring—with an order that they pay most of the university’s legal bill.
Her order also ends, on July 29, the injunction which has blocked construction and the destruction of the grove. Construction could begin immediately after that date unless the plaintiffs are able to win a stay from the state appellate court.
She also divided costs for the litigation, which produced over 40,000 pages of documentation and lasted 18 months, with 15 per cent to be paid by the university and the remaining 85 percent divided equally between:
• The city of Berkeley, represented by Sacramento attorney Harriet Steiner;
• The Panoramic Hill Association, represented by Alameda attorney Michael Lozeau, and
•A group of plaintiffs represented by Oakland attorney Stephan Volker, which includes Spring, the California Oak Foundation and several other Berkeley residents.
Just what those costs will include remains uncertain, with one university official stating that attorney fees probably wouldn’t be included. Volker agreed.
The judgment and order, which follow Miller’s June 18 decision on the case, don’t hand the university an unequivocal victory.
The judge rejected a claim by the university that the Alquist-Priolo Act, which governs construction within 50 feet of active earthquake faults, does apply to UC construction projects.
That decision won’t affect the gym project, since the university eliminated three features connecting with gym project with the stadium which Judge Miller had ruled in June were governed by the law.
She also gave the city a minor victory, denying the university’s contention that traffic, noise and other impacts from a planned seven additional events at the stadium were unknowable. The university sidestepped the issue by a decision to drop the planned events.
“We are very pleased by this decision,” said Dan Mogulof, the university’s executive director for public affairs.
“We see it as a vindication and validation of the process which led to our decision about where and how to build a facility that is absolutely necessary for the safety and well-being of our student athletes,” he said.
Volker said he will be filing an appeal on behalf of the plaintiffs he represents within the next few days, though he couldn’t speak for the city or the Panoramic Hill Association.
The appeal has to be filed within the next seven days, while the injunction is still in effect, in order to win an automatic 20-day continuation of the injunction, he said.
“It is our belief the judge misread the law and has misapprehended the facts of the case,” said Volker.
“The public has a vital interest in preserving the outstanding oak grove, and we believe we will be ultimately vindicated by the courts,” he said.
Steiner is on a vacation in Hawaii and was unavailable for comment, and Lozeau is out of state attending a family reunion, Volker said, while Zach Cowan, Berkeley’s acting city attorney, is scheduled to be out of town Wednesday through Friday.
But City Councilmember Linda Maio said the council will meet in closed session Thursday, “and we won’t recess until we’re done with this. Clearly, there are issues for us to deal with.”
Maio said the recent adoption of the state’s green building code also raises new issues.
Doug Buckwald, Director of Save the Oaks at the Stadium, issued this statement on Tuesday night:
"Today (Tuesday, July 22, 2008) at 4:30 pm, Judge Barbara Miller issued her final judgment in the case of the Memorial Oak Grove dispute in Berkeley, California. The timing of her decision is highly prejudicial to the Petitioners, and this will make it difficult for them to exercise their legal right to an appeal.
"Judge Miller issued a ruling which dissolves the injunction protecting the trees in seven days (calendar days, not business days) and so the university will be able to cut the trees down unless an appellate court issues a new injunction. That means that Petitioners will have to get a motion into appellate court as soon as possible to have any chance of saving the trees. Petitioners’ difficulty is magnified by the fact that two out of three of their attorneys are away on previously-scheduled vacations, and so they will be unable to participate fully in the process.
"Also, the Berkeley City Council will be in a summer recess after tonight’s council meeting. They, too, will have to grapple with making a decision about how to proceed in a very brief amount of time.
“Unfortunately, the timing of the court's decision makes it particularly difficult for us to proceed to the next step in the judicial process. The ruling has forced our legal team to rush into court with minimum time to consult with all clients and to prepare legal papers.
“I believe that we have a strong case to take to the appellate court. It would be a real tragedy to lose the beloved oak grove now, and then win in court later when it would be too late to save the trees. You can’t put stumps and sawdust back in the ground and make things all better again. Those beautiful, majestic oaks would be gone forever.
“Irrespective of the unfair time constraints of the judicial process, the university still could choose to do the right thing and spare the trees until the appellate court rules. That approach would be cooperative and would ensure that the legitimate interests of the city and community were not shortchanged on a legal technicality.
“I can only hope that university officials have listened to the many people in this community who have spoken out in favor of the trees for the past two years--a coalition which includes a broad spectrum of Berkeley society--and they will realize the severe and lasting harm that will come of any rash action on their part to cut the trees down while we may still be standing at the courtroom door asking to be heard. Ignoring the wishes of the community like this would be counter to its paramount obligation to the public it serves. If it does so, the University of California will be forever stained in the eyes of many people who have supported it in the past. “
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1. Appeal;
2. Tell the plaintiffs attorneys to run for all judge positions on a platform of resisting the capitalist class and its stinking stadium swindles;
3. Recall the stinking judge;
4. Refuse to pay any costs. That anti-democratic theft must end.
5. Increase the demand for education in this society everywhere and for everyone. UC Berkeley and all other public univerisities should be free and open to anyone over age 18, whether or not they have a high school diploma, so long as they can do the course work. The biggest problem with this protest is that UC Berkeley now is just a rich folks' finishing school and the lawsuits are basically property owners' lawsuits.
6. Abolish the UC Board of Regents and put UC under the State Board of Education, as is the rest of the state college system in California. UC is being milked dry by administrators and the reactionary Board of Regents, which includes :
--Senator Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, the current Chairperson of the Board of Regents. Here is more on these corporate criminal gang:
--Vice Chair Russell Gould: Vice President of Wachovia Bank
--Judith Hopkinson: former Chief Operating Officer of Ameriquest Capital Corporation
--John Hotchkis, Chair of Ramajal, an investment business;
--Eddie Island, a lawyer appointed by Schwarzenegger;
--Sherry Lansing, former Chair of Paramount Pictures;
--Monica Lozano, Publisher of La Opinion newspaper, Spanish language capitalist newspaper;
--George Marcus, Chair of Marcus & Millichap, a commercial real estate business, and chair of Essex Property Trust;
--Norman J. Pattiz, chair of Westwood One, "America's largest radio network," promoting capitalism;
--Bonnie Reiss, Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors;
--Leslie Tang Schilling, Director of Union Square Investments;
--Bruce D. Varner, lawyer appointed by Schwarzenegger;
--Paul Wachter, President of Main Street Advisors;
All found at:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regbios/welcome.html
This corporate criminal gang is incapable of caring about education and only sits on this Board to maximize their own profits, the primary goal of capitalism, all at taxpayer expense.
ALL the money is coming from private donations.
You might want to check your facts.
There's no way the poor-ass state of California can afford to fund stadium renovation, so the university must beg its alumni for help. So far, hundreds of millions of dollars have been raised.
The sad irony as well is that the protestors are siding with the Panoramic Hills Neighborhood Association, which represents the richest neighborhood in Berkeley, an area where the median home price is $1,2500,000. Those people hate the campus community and want to curtail student activities. They have managed to curtail evening concerts at the Greek Theater, a legendary venue where Jimmy Hendrix and countless other great artists performed for the campus and broader community.
I'm sure these problems are much less important than the oak grove:
1) Crime: Berkeley's thefts, assaults, burglaries, and robbery rates are higher than the national average
2) Infrastructure: There's a lot of 'to do' stuff here roads, bike lanes, utilities all in disrepair not to mention lots of urban blight
3) Homelessness: More programs for these people and others hurt by the recession
4) Education: Berkeley schools are not stellar... it's no wonder why the rich people of Berkeley don't send their kids into Berkeley's public schools. How many Berkeley HS grads end up going to Berkeley?
Without the University of California Berkeley, the City of Berkeley would be another crime-ridden, impoverished Richmond or another bankrupt Vallejo.
There is no altruism; chairty beings at home. This project is the usual construction project scheme to reward the business friends of the Regents, and to promote the biggest reactionary racket of all, football, which should be abolished. To the extent any school at any level has a football team is to the extent its academic quality is diminished.
As to the alleged benefits of UC to Berkeley, it is an albatross. Berkeley does very well as a suburb of San Francisco in terms of jobs and as a small community, away from the freezing cold big city. Most of the jobs at UC are so low wage that the employees qualify for welfare and food stamps; there was just a one-week strike about that. Meanwhile, the administrators are milking the cream off the top with ridiculously high salaries, all paid for with our tax dollars, so they can promote the many war and other business contracts that the university has, as well as its reactionary and deadly nuclear program. Berkeley has the same poverty that Richmond has because this is a stinking, rotten capitalist society which takes our labor without paying us adequately so that the rich may become richer. All profits are our stolen labor. As to the alleged somewhat higher rate of robberies in Berkeley, the robbery rate in the wealthy Marina district of San Francisco is higher than in the poorer areas because there is more to steal. The stench in Richmond is Chevron Oil; the deadly menace in Berkeley with its nuclear research and its destruction of much needed beautfiul trees that hold in the hillside is the rich folks' finishing school, resting on the backs of the low wage workers, is the University of California. UC's entire system needs to be made part of the state university system with open admissions to all who are at least age 18 and totally free of charge to the students so that there are no rich folks' finishing schools, state universities need to be built in Contra Costa County and many other counties in this state, and Hayward State needs to be expanded. The wages of all workers must be no less than $25 per hour and no administrator should receive more than $200,000 a year. All football teams need to be abolished as they are, at the professional level, gambling rackets, and at the preparation for the professional level, namely the high schools and colleges, dangerous and financially wasteful rackets that cultivate a warrior, anti-women and anti-intellectual mentality. This is possible with a serious labor movement that can finally put an end to this bankrupt social order in which we live, capitalism. It is not wishful thinking; it must take place if we and the planet are to survive.
Some additions to the description of the corporate gang above:
--Blum is Chair of Blum Capital Partners and his occupation is that of an investor or more precisely, a parasite. Feinstein & Blum are millionaires, and some of their profits came from war profiteering in the Middle East. They happen to be Democrats, no different from the Republicans.
--Eddie Island was vice-president to McDonald-Douglas Corp, a war profiteering business.
--Bruce Varner is a business attorney.
The entire corporate gang named above are sitting on the Board of Regents to enrich themselves and that is the only reason the Board of Regents exists. There is no good reason to have UC separate from the rest of the state university system in California.
As to funding anything and everything, it should always come from the general fund, paid for by the progressive income tax, which taxes on those who make over $200,000 a year should be raised to pay for all education, medical care, roads, housing, transportation, and everything else that we need.
This writer has witnessed almost 60 years of the horrors of UC, especially UC Berkeley. It is outrageous that they are proposing to tear down these beautiful trees, rushing to do so while most students are out of town during the summer vacation. There are of course 7 million people living in the Bay Area, and we will be witness to this heinous, unforgettable and unforgivable crime. The object lesson will be clear to all as the fall strike season starts, with Los Angeles public schools set to strike to save the public school system from the ravages of the corporate parasites who want to make all schools rich folks' finishing schools and promote rackets like stadium swindles to enrich themselves. With labor on the move statewide, we can add to our agenda putting an end to the Board of Regents, making UC part of our state university system and abolishing all private and parochial schools, including charter schools. And above all, the time is long overdue to eliminate the private profit system.
well, i guess they have a "state fiscal crisis" so they can't pay AFCSME a decent wage. less than community colleges' maintenance people.
are they serious? oh but i guess snooty jock bro's need somewhere safe to use thier steroids.
i hate the regents, i hate the juge.
Cutting down several dozen oak trees with the support of the law is, by definition, not a crime, let alone a heinous one. According to Merriam-Webster, something that is "heinous" is "hatefully or shockingly evil". If cutting down a small number of trees that one planted to begin with is "shockingly evil", then what is murder? Super-mega-ultra-shockingly evil?
In the future, you might want to look up big words in the dictionary before you try to use them to discredit things or people you don't like.
These people don't respect the Earth anymore. They don't respect other individuals of other species. They think that humans are the center of the universe, which is totally bogus. Wasteful industrialized humans are contributing the global climate destabilization and pollution and destruction of habitat that is causing the largest extinction on Earth in 65 million years.
Read Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken http://natcap.org and learn about the incredible waste of our resources. Bad automobile and industrial design has wasted huge amounts of energy and resources. Check out his timeline of the making and wasting of an aluminum soda can. Check out his facts on the waste of resources on automobile design. It is a social and environmental crime that these automobile corporations did this. But our 'government' is so infiltrated by corrupt corporate looters, that they haven't done enough to stop the damage. Now we have catastrophic global warming upon us, and the corporations are like mass murderers. Check out http://CorpWatch.org and http://TheCorporation.com.
Observe and annotate the diversionary tactics of the corporate shills. Get their names. Take photos. These people are a menace to society. Help educate them. They are so ignorant and self-centered that they don't have enough knowledge to do good for society as a whole. They are still deluding us with the shell game of 'politics' instead of working on real issues.
http://BicycleCity.com
from the Berkeley Daily Planet
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-08-07/article/30760?headline=Football-Coach-Tops-UC-Payscale-at-2.8-Million
This is obscene corporate payola. It probably pays for a lot of 'favors'.
Who prints the money and hands it out in wads?! Gangsters. Observe the Wall Street Criminals.