Protesters unhappy with Cal upgrade plan

BERKELEY, Calif. – The protesters have been perched in the oaks for seven weeks, peacefully enduring frost and rain and the occasional earthquake from 40 feet above the University of California campus.

Their supporters congregate below in tie-dyed sarongs and spiked leather jackets, chanting, dancing and hanging oversized drawings of eyes from the trunks of the decades-old trees that could be gone in a few months.

“We Can Have Old Trees And New Gyms,” one banner reads.

Grass-roots protests are part of the landscape in this cradle of activist politics and environmental awareness. But these protesters at the base of Memorial Stadium are fighting an uphill battle over the fate of a small oak grove caught between sports and science.

The school intends to remove 42 trees, including 26 ecologically valuable coast live oaks, to make way for a $125 million athletic training complex that will anchor a badly needed renovation of the Golden Bears’ dilapidated stadium, which is nestled among hundreds of similar oaks and redwoods in Strawberry Canyon.

“We think it’s outrageous that UC Berkeley, which consistently presents itself as an environmental leader, would take an action that goes against what its professors teach every day on campus,” said Doug Buckwald, a 1982 Cal grad and a member of Save the Oaks at the Stadium, one of several groups protesting the school’s plan.

Such a project would be welcomed in most any other big football town with a winning team such as coach Jeff Tedford’s, which won a share of the Pac-10 title this season for the first time in three decades. Though Cal claims it has made extensive efforts to appease every environmental and safety concern, the school faces a slew of lawsuits and growing public condemnation.

Tedford and athletic director Sandy Barbour are learning that in Berkeley building a conference champion might be easier than building a new gym.

“I really believe this campus has gone about it the right way,” Barbour said. “This project fills a significant need, not only for our athletes, but for the school. Every aspect has been designed to improve the safety of our student-athletes, and it’s really just a fabulous project for this campus.”

But a growing groundswell of protest says the university’s plans are rife with flaws. Buckwald can cite a laundry list of mistakes, from city laws that prohibit the removal of such trees to the dangers of building on an earthquake fault.

Four lawsuits have been filed, and several groups will seek a preliminary injunction against the project next week. Some of the nation’s most prominent activists, from Woodstock emcee Wavy Gravy to veteran tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill, have turned up in support.

The protesters insist they don’t hate football or begrudge the training needs of the 12 other Cal teams, from field hockey to lacrosse, that will train in the 142,000-square-foot training center. They simply believe Cal should put it somewhere else.

“If they had any kind of legitimate public process, we never would have seen this spectacularly bad plan put forth,” Buckwald said. “They wouldn’t have come up with an unreasonable plan to build their sports facility in a dangerous place right by a fault and without planning to destroy this ancient grove of trees.”

The project never would have started without Tedford’s success. The coach is 43-20 since taking over in 2002, winning three bowl games and restoring pride and enthusiasm to a program that had little of either in the quarter-century before he arrived.

But even Tedford, who agreed this week to a contract extension through 2013, knows the Bears’ recruiting potential is limited without a home that measures up to the nation’s best. His coaches now work in cramped, dungeon-like offices inside Memorial Stadium, with a sub-par weight room and a leaky locker room.

“We’ve been fairly successful recruiters, and it obviously hasn’t been because of the facilities,” Tedford said. “This is going to give us everything we need to recruit, to compete and to build a program the school can be proud of.”

Led by Barbour, Cal already has raised approximately $100 million – about 80 percent of the cost of the training center. The stadium renovation will take place in two later phases.

But the oaks must be removed to make the current plans work, and that has sent protesters scrambling into the trees – and to their lawyers.

There is a city law against removing such trees, but the university is a state entity that’s not required to follow such city regulations. There also are laws against building on an active fault, but Cal vice chancellor Nathan Brostrum cites geological studies saying there’s no active fault under the training complex.