The University of California at Berkeley has made concessions in its long-running standoff with the city, tree-sitting protesters and neighbors of Memorial Stadium. The university wants to build an athletic training center next to the stadium. The university says it will scrap all non-football events at Memorial Stadium and drop plans to attach a concrete support beam to the stadium's west wall. The school also is asking a judge to lift an injunction that prevents the university from beginning construction on the center in a grove of oak trees next to the stadium. Tree-sitters have been roosting there for 18 months in protest of the university's plans to cut the trees to make way for the training center.
To read The San Francisco Chronicle article, click here.
FROM 2007: Despite a judge's order that tree-sitters in Berkeley, Calif., are living in trees illegally and posing a health and safety risk, the University of California-Berkeley has no plans to forcibly remove the group. The judge issued a preliminary injunction evicting one tree-sitter, who faces a $1,000 fine and up to five days in jail if he doesn't comply. Since the protest started in December, tree-sit organizers say more than 300 different people have perched in the trees at different times. They are protesting the university's plans to build a $125 million sports training center. (San Jose Mercury News)
SEPTEMBER 2007: Protesters at the University of California, Berkeley, have been living in trees outside the school's football stadium in an effort to stop the university from removing the trees and building an athletic center. The conflict escalated late last month when the school erected a 10-foot-high fence around the trees, effectively cutting off the protesters from their supplies.
Click here to read The New York Times article.
