Dear Cal Athletic Department,

I know you know I’m disappointed in your football team. But this isn’t about that.

This is about public safety.

Last night, 71,799 packed into Memorial Stadium to see Cal play USC.

As you’re well aware, the stadium was built nearly a century ago, when people were smaller. The rows are too tightly packed and the seat numbers on the benches are too close together.

This isn’t a problem, generally, because people spread out to fill the space. But when the game is a sellout, it becomes extremely uncomfortable.

This has been true for a while now. But by closing a large number of entrances to the stadium, as a part of the construction of the training center on the stadium’s west side, you’ve taken the situation from uncomfortable to dangerous.

Too many people are being packed into too small a space. There were people trying to get to their seats for an entire quarter. Attendees were pouring out of the tunnel behind my section, FF, and gridlocking the entire aisle all the way from tunnel to field level, in an attempt to move over to their seats in a different section. I believe at some point, certain parts of the walkway were actually closed down for safety reasons.

Going up to the bathrooms or concessions seemed like an impossibility. Getting out of the stadium in the event of an emergency also seemed completely unlikely.

What I’m saying is, the construction has changed the dynamics of the stadium, but you haven’t changed the capacity. You need to rectify this. As soon as possible, you should place a cap on the number of tickets you sell. I know it’s fun to sell 72,000 tickets, but for safety reasons you should decrease the number to something smaller. 65,000, maybe? You know, I hear scarcity can be a good thing for ticket prices. And 65,000 is still a huge number of seats.

I’m serious, now. The situation Saturday night at Memorial Stadium wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was dangerous. That stadium is not capable of handling that many people, especially with half the stadium entrances closed off by construction.

Do the right thing. Reduce the number of tickets you sell until you can fix stadium access.

Over at calbears.com, they’ve got up a post about the UC regents preliminarily approving the stadium renovation. This allows them to move forward on specific construction plans and drawing and to work on the financing plan. I think this is a very good sign that they’re not getting gun-shy with all of the budget cutbacks. Of course there’s no actual financial relationship between the two, but it doesn’t change that the PR issues surrounding raising fees while at the same time reducing services makes managers nervous about approving a big project, even if they’re independently funded. It just looks bad to people who are ignorant to the distinctions and often by the time those financial distinctions are corrected, the horse is already out of the barn.

In any case, there are some notable details that are spelled out in black and white:

• The year we’ll be nomads is 2011. (Court delays aside)
• The project will cost $321 million. That’s worrisome to me because of the rules of Alto-Priolo. That means we’ve got to get a stadium evaluation at $642 million or higher. It sure would be nice if that number was under $500 million. I think that’ll be a lot easier to justify in front of a judge. I wonder if they’ve figured out ways to minimize how much of that $321 counts towards the official retrofit?
• There’s more data there on the number of ESP seats sold (at nearly 2000 of 3000).
• It also makes it pretty clear that the east side renovations are on the back-burner for quite a while, at least until “funds become available”.
• Not that this is new, but they’ll be lowering the field 3 feet.

In any case, good to see they’re moving forward.

I didn’t get a post in about this last week when I found out about it, but Cal swapped out AC Transit for a private bus company to do the shuttles from Rockridge BART and Berkeley Amtrak. When I found out, I was unhappy because of the added cost. Last year I spent $8.50 for my whole family round trip. My two youngest are free and the eldest is $1.50 round trip, with adults costing $3.50 each. Silverado, the company that Cal contracted with, is charging $5 a person, which isn’t too much more for us adults, but really hits us with the kids. In all, we went from $8.50 a game to $25 a game, basically triple the cost. “I might as well pay for the parking on campus!?!” I said at the time.

My other fear was that Sliverado wouldn’t be able to handle the load or would have massive inefficiency problems. The point of this post is to give them props for doing very well. They were efficient in their simplicity. No complicated setup with going from one station to another. They just had a lady standing in front of the bus who you handed a $5 bill to and she handed you a raffle ticket and told you to hold on to it to the end of the game for the round trip. When one adds in their taking Telegraph instead of College (a much more open road) and dropping us off at Piedmont and Bancroft instead of College and Bancroft (in other words, at the top of the hill) and they did a great job.

The one minor complication was after the game they lacked appropriate signage for which bus was going where. With buses going to Rockridge BART, Berkeley Amtrak and a longer route that went to Lafayette BART and beyond into Contra Costa County, they really needed signs. But all one had to do was ask the drivers and they could figure it out pretty quick. The fact that it was again on Piedmont Ave instead of down on College was a benefit as well. Hopefully they’ll put up some signage for the upcoming game to improve in that area.

The final point of this post is to go into the background of why AC Transit is no longer providing the shuttle.

Turns out that AC Transit was the one to initiate the change, although that’s not what they had intended. They’re in the middle of doing a bunch of cost cutting and it turns out it costs them $200k a year to do the shuttle. That’s above and beyond the revenue they collected for the shuttle. So, they went to the University and asked them to pick up the $200k tab. The University balked and called around to find out who’d give them a better deal and Silverado was.

When I found that out I was really ticked off, and not at the University.

$200k a year!?! Why wasn’t I being transported in the gold plated bus that apparently I, as a tax payer, was paying for? Let’s do the math on this one:

$200k a year means $33k a game. Assuming they have about 30 buses a game, which from what I’ve seen sounds about right, that means about $1000 a bus. With each bus holding about 50 people that means every one was, in addition to the fare they paid, costing AC Transit about $20 round trip.

TWENTY DOLLARS PER PERSON ROUND TRIP!?!

This is the perfect example of how government is wasteful and hides it. I had always been under the assumption that AC Transit was running a profitable affair on game day. I mean, it’s the perfect environment for it. Full buses on a short run getting a full fare. Plus, it’s gravy fares for when AC Transit is usually unable to get a lot of riders (on the weekends). But no, that $8.50 I was paying was only a tiny fractional percentage of the $100 or so it was costing us all as tax payers to take my family to the game. Yes, $100 round-trip for my family. For what it is worth, a taxi, a very cost inefficient model of transit, would only cost about $20 round-trip.

Then, you’ve got to love this quote from the AC Transit folks:

We’re a little bit ticked off, to be honest, because when presented with our dilemma, instead of using us, Cal chose to pay public money to a private service.

Yeah, how horrible of the University. Instead of being ripped off by AC Transit, they went with someone who was able to give us a better deal. Notice the subtle assumption that Silverado is charging a similar fee, that they’re just as ridiculously over priced. I would bet my $20 per person in saved taxes that Silverado isn’t charging the University a penny and is thankful to get the contract to do it for free (plus the $300 a bus (the Silverado buses hold more people, about 65) that it’s getting from the fares).

Completely unbelievable that AC Transit is still in business. They’re just as bad as BART. Way to go Cal for not putting up with their crud. I’ll gladly exchange paying $25 straight up for $8.50 straight up and $100 in taxes. I still might be changing to paying for parking next year, seeing as how it’ll be cheaper for me, but I still support the University’s actions in response to the ridiculous and amazingly inefficient AC Transit.

UPDATE on 9/9 at 8:30 AM: Looks like I got the good end of the stick based on statements from other people including bar20 in my comments and a thread over at BearInsider. The two biggest things it seems they need to work on is signage of where to go and keeping the buses out of the flow of foot traffic, both of which are important. The one comment I don’t get is that it took too long because they went down to Telegraph instead of staying on College. I think that person just in their mind believes because it wasn’t the direct route it took longer, but I can tell you from experience it was well within the norm of how long it would take the AC Transit shuttle to go up College. College is a nightmare on gameday, particularly around Ashby. Between the lack of left turn lanes that make it so often only a couple cars can get through a light during each sequence and all the stop signs that further queue people up and prevent them from getting through the key lights like Ashby, it’s got to be one of the most inefficient roads in America. Telegraph on the other hand is a 4 lane road with no stop signs and was much more smooth. So while it was a longer route, I’d argue that it was at least as fast as staying on College and likely faster.

In fact, I was so impressed with Telegraph that I was disappointed when the buses took College directly on the way back and we sat in gridlock like usual on College (perhaps Telegraph isn’t as nice after the game). I also thought to myself that if I do switch over to getting parking through the University in future years, I’ll be taking Telegraph on the way to the game, not College as would be more convenient for where I’m coming from.

When I was at the stadium on Tuesday I took more pictures of the SAHPC construction. Excavation is effectively complete but the real big news, at least for us ticket-holders, is the raised walkways that replace the asphalt walkway that used to go around the western rim of the stadium. That’s gone now because of the excavation. As I commented earlier this week, the University is doing everything it can to minimize the impact of the construction.

That includes installing a railing that replaces row 27 from sections D to HH to encourage people in the lower rows to exit towards the field, not towards the concourse:

There are really two raised walkways. One goes from the stairwell between sections EE and E and heads to the North parking lot (so every section from EE towards A can exit the stadium through the stairwell). Here’s what the walkway looks like from the stairwell:

Then there’s no exit between E and GG.

The 2nd raised walkway starts at the stairwell between GG and H and goes to the south parking lot. Here’s a picture of it as viewed from the south parking lot (well, close to there anyway):

Finally on the topic of the walkway, this is the best picture I took that shows what it’ll look like while on it:

As for the SAHPC itself, as I said above, the big breakthrough is all the excavation. Here’s the view towards the I-House (which also provides another view of the south raise walkway):

Also notice that the excavation on the northern side is not as deep, particularly on the western side of the building (I wish I had got some shots from the street to show the excavation up against the stadium on this side):

Finally, here’s the northern view where you can see the exit of the northern raised walkway as it exits to the north parking lot:

You can see the entire set of pictures here.

When I arrived at Memorial Stadium for the first time in the fall last week, there was a newly installed railing on the Alumni side in what used to be row 27, which was now missing. It stretched from D to HH. When I asked about it, one of the other reporters said that it had something to do with crowd control now that the SAHPC was under construction.

My initial response was that I didn’t see how things were going to be different because the tree sitters had the entire area blocked off both of the last two years. However, in retrospect, I realized that response was incorrect. The excavation for the SAHPC further eliminated the walkway around the west side of the stadium. It’ll be physically impossible to exit the stadium on the west side. One would have to walk around the concourse to either the north or south exit because of the new excavation.

Well, it turns out that the Athletic department thought this through and decided to put a smaller than the previous walkway but still a HUGE benefit, elevated (in the sense that it is over the top of the SAHPC construction site, but it’s level with the old ground level) walkway that will allow for some number of people to continue to walk outside the western rim.

Then, on Friday, they released a exit plan for games that showed where they hope fans from each section will exit. (You can find a PDF of the critical graphic for better resolution, here.)

As you can see if you look closely at the PDF, the hope is every one below the new railing will exit towards the field instead of into the concourse or to the new elevated walkways.

Just an FYI for better planning… I’ll take some pictures of all of this, including overall pictures of construction progress, tomorrow when I’m back at the stadium for practice.

UPDATE on June 25th: This post has been getting a lot of attention lately so I talked with the Athletic Office today to see what the probability of moving the students is. The answer I got from Herb Beneson was that this is not a discussion point and while not every decision has been made, there’s been no indication that the students will be moved. Herb also pointed to the Haas Pavilion where the Basketball team plays. When they moved there from Harmon Gym, the students still got mid-court seats on one side. So looks like the Athletic Office views things very similarly to use regular folks. I’m going to be working with Herb to get an interview with one of the people in the know to get more details on how the seating will be arranged after the renovation, with the caveat that things are still in flux, so look for additional blog posts on the subject in the coming weeks.

bar20 made the comment down in my new stadium seating analysis that I was completely overlooking the idea that the student seats may be moved from the 50 yard line premier seats to make room for displaced donors and longtime season ticket holders.

It’s true, I did.

But I guess that’s because I don’t want to even consider the possibility. Every stadium I’ve been to where they displace the students into the endzone has felt wrong to me. It might as well be a pro-stadium, potentially an old one, but a stadium where there’s no more ownership of the team than owning season tickets.

In my opinion, students deserve good seats. It’s their school afterall. Not to be too harsh, but every alumni who wants to push them out in my opinion is taking an “I got mine” attitude, because when they were students, they got the best seats. Now, instead of handing down that tradition and benefit they received they want to be the group that gets the best of both worlds, the best seats in college and those same seats as donors.

Yes, yes, I know that’s what all the other programs are doing. I’ve never accepted that as a reasonable answer. You do something because it is the right thing, not because it is what the herd is doing.

But maybe I’m off base. Answer my new survey on the sidebar and add you comments: Are you willing to accept worse seating so that the students don’t have to be displaced?

My previous post about the donor program going well has had me re-hashing thoughts about how the seating will work out after the stadium renovation and I thought I’d share some of those thoughts. But first a disclaimer:

I have ZERO insider information to justify my thoughts. It’s just based on my deductive reasoning and my general sense of fairness.

Let’s start out with an problem statement:

Currently there are about 72,000 seats in Memorial stadium. When the renovation is finished there will be about 63,000 seats (current estimates). There are only about 45,000 season ticket holders, but those season ticket holders generally hold the best seats in the stadium. Those best seats on the west side will now be spread out. As such, fewer people will be able to sit close to the 50 yard line on the west side. Thus the fundamental question is: who will be displaced and to where?

Here’s the base analysis of how many people will be displaced:

(By the way, I might be helpful to open up a seating chart for Memorial stadium at this point.)

There’s 48 sections in Memorial stadium and for the most part they are similar in size. 72k/48 = 1500 seats per section. Currently the donor seating on the west side compromises 8 sections (EE to I) for a total of 12,000 seats. Based on news reports, it appears that capacity will be reduced to 8,000 seats. There will be 3000 premier seats and then 5000 “regular” donor seats. My assumption is that the “regular” donor seats will extend as far as they have in the past, EE to I.

Of course, that’s only a 4k reduction, so we need to come up with 5k additional seats that are converted from bleachers to seats. Assuming the same ratio of 2 seats take the space of 3 bleacher seats that the donor section has, that means 10 additional sections must be converted. I’m going to make a stab and say the following sections will be converted: T, TT, CC through E and II through K. There’s other options here, mostly putting either more or less seating (could there be none?) on the east side, however I’m going to stick with my setup because it’s exclusively on the west side minus where there is donor seating on the east side.

So where are season ticket holders currently sitting?

Basically, current ticket holders take up all but 18 sections. To simplify matters, I’m going to assume all sections are filled before they move to the next, which is obviously not true. Nevertheless I think it is a simplification that doesn’t leave too much unaccounted for. Those single-game seated sections would be C through D (3 sections), JJ thorugh KK (3 sections), MM through PP (includes visitor section for 7 total) and UU through WW).

So, somewhere between 6 and 9 of those sections, depending on whether the new sections have seats or benches are going to be filled by people displaced from the west side (and the two donor sections on the east side). CC, D, JJ and K, all of the remaining non-donor seats get 4,000 displaced season ticket holders. V, UU, and PP, being bleachers would basically round it out with 4500 additional displaced season ticket holders (we’re 500 short, but my math is rough enough here to make that count).

So that’s the practical matters of how much we’re going to get spread out, or at least my best guess at it anyway. The big question remains: who gets moved where?

Here’s my best guess:

If you’re sitting in a donor section and are willing to either keep or start ponying up the donor fees for your seat then I think you’ll be able to sit close to where you always have (see gotcha #1 below for the limitations of that). I suspect 1/3rd of those sitting there are former-donors or long time season ticket holders who aren’t going to be willing to pony up in the future, so those of you who do will be in good shape overall and won’t get signficantly displaced. The big question mark is sections DD, E, II, J and U, the non-donor sections.

There are two big “gotchas” for those sections:

1. Because they’re going to be seats in these sections, the seat numbers and rows are going to be different. You physically CAN’T sit in the same seats as before. Row 33 won’t be where row 33 is today, nor will seats 4-8 in row 33. So the likely demand of “I want the same seats I had before!” just doesn’t make logical sense.
2. If you’re thinking “well it might not be the exact same rows and seats, but I can ask for the same area” gotcha #2 is for you: We’ll have been sitting somewhere else for a season or two. We’ll have been at the Oakland Coliseum or Candlestick or something. It’s a lot harder in 2013 to want your old seats back when the last time you sat there was 2010.

So the result on the west side (I’m going to ignore the displaced east side people at this point) is that 4,000 former donors and 6,000 non-donors get to divy up 8,000 seats on the west side and 2,000 of the get displaced to the east side. Perhaps there will be less displaced from the west side against their will if the Blue and Gold zone’s are expanded up to KK and C so that they included all the bleachers and that entices some people to take the cheap seats now that they’ve been displaced from their formerly choice seats.

And what about priority? It’s significant difference sitting in CC from E (or the similar story on the southwest side). It’s anybody’s guess but my gut feeling tells me that length of holding season tickets as well as squeeky wheels will be all that matters. I can’t imagine any other way of doing it. Why would former donors who are new get priority over long-time ticket holders? Why would people who’ve been sitting in E for years get priority over people who’ve had tickets for 30 years but are getting displaced particularly when the specific seats don’t exist anymore? What else is there to go by? I just can’t see any other “fair” metric between non-donors besides how long one has been a season ticket holder.

Other thoughts?

I don’t know about the rest of you, but my biggest concern when I heard about the plan to pay for the Memorial Stadium retrofit, the plan to charge a fortune for luxury boxes and other prime seats to the tune of $50K-$225K per seat over 50 years, my biggest worry was where they were going to find the people who would pay it.

I thought it was a great plan, but they were already having trouble getting people to pay the Bear Backer fees for the seats they had. Heck, I know I’m sitting in seats outside the Bear Backer section because I’m not willing to pony up the big bucks. My 6 seats cost more than I’m comfortable with already.

Additionally, while I know this is harder for people like Jason my co-blogger to hear (because he has those prime seats), I’m OK with the idea that we’re going to kick some former donors or long time season ticket holders out of their prime seats to make room for new donors (or extended donors). At this point, those people will get about 10 seasons of exceptional seats for a program that is good enough to justify doing what other good programs around the country have been doing for a long time. They’ll still get pretty good seats as long-time season ticket holders in the non-donor section when everyone gets shuffled around. I think a 10-year thank you for their loyalty through the thin times is sufficient even thought I don’t begrudge them being disappointed for wanting it to last indefinitely.

The point of that longer-than-intended explination is that I was perfectly happy with plan and its consequences, but I was unsure whether it would work. Were they really going to find 3000 people who had a couple hundred thousand (two seats) to give over the next 30 years?

Well, good news!:

Since Cal began the seat endowment program in January, 40 percent of the 3,000 available seats have been claimed, with about 10 percent paying up front and the rest making 30-year commitments. So far, the university has raised more than $164 million, Rosselli said.

I’d say that’s pretty good progress on the program. Considering that the renovation is going to cost $250 million or so (estimates vary), we’re about half way there! Now admittedly, they’ve only got about $40-$50 million of that in the bank with the rest coming over 30 years, but still, great progress!

Good news all the way around

(As an aside, if you click on the link for the article, do your best to ignore the derisive tone of both the article and the ill-informed commentors. We know what’s going on and whether or not we agree with the mechanism used for raising the money, we know it needs to be raised. Seeing that this mechanism is working suggests the University did the right thing.)

As promised, I took more pictures of the SAHPC construction at the final spring practice. For the most part, not much had changed. The two notable things were…

Actual excavation on the south end by the I-House:

And a newly brought in pile-driver:

(Assumably to drive all those retaining steel beams into the ground)

Other than that, not much had changed:

You can see the rest of the collection here:
http://thecrawfordfamily.net/gallery/sahpc-4-18-09

Yesterday before practice I took the time to take some pictures of the construction progress of the SAHPC next to the stadium:

As you can see from the above picture, not much of a hole has been dug yet. I was expecting there to have been more progress there. It’s important to remember that this is a 4 story structure that’s roof will be at the same level as the bottom of the stadium. As such, they’ve got to dig a pretty big hole.

But what you can see is that a bunch of steel beams have been delivered to the site. In fact, they ring the entire western side of the stadium as can be seen from this picture taken from on top of section E:

What’s also impressive is how far construction extends. I didn’t get a picture of this far around the stadium, but most of the south entrance to the stadium is blocked off. The furthest South picture I took was pointed at the I-House:

At the other end, you can see that it wraps all the way around to just short of the north tunnel (sorry for the camera angle):

My guess/understanding is that those steel beams are for the retaining wall that will be used to keep the big hole intact after excavation. So I suspect the next step is to either drive those steel beams into the ground or dig a trench and install them into it. I don’t really know how they’re going to do it.

I’ll take some more pictures at the final spring practice to show what progress has been made in the next few weeks.

(Note that you can click on the images to get a larger image)

While the SAHPC case has been over for months now, there has still be a slew of legal wrangling back and forth. There have been no less than 28 new legal motions in the ‘Register of Actions’ for the court case the vast majority of which have been regarding legal costs that each side owes each other. Last Friday the final ruling about court costs was made. Each of the petitioners (the other side) were given 15% of their costs and the respondants (the University) was giving 85% of their costs. That means the following money will change hands:

• California Oak Foundation will pay the University $17,777.04
• Panaramic Hills Association will pay the Universisty $17,808.54
• City of Berkeley will pay the University $17,861.49

Of course the COF has no money and so will not pay. But it at least means that they’ll cease to exist as the organization because they couldn’t do any fund-raising without having to give that money to the University. But the rest of the money will get paid and I think it’s really important, particularly for the PHA as it’ll really discourage future legal action when they’ve got no case. This will no doubt not sit well with them.

Also remember that the appeal is still in progress. While the appellate judge refused to put an injunction in place while the appeal is heard, which allowed the University to move forward with the project in the mean time, the appeal will still be heard and could, in theory at least, halt the project if the appellate court ruled in favor of the Petitioners.

Right now, they’re still in the formative part of the case with the Petitioners being asked to show cause for why the appeal should move forward (a normal part of the process). I’ll give updates when the action gets rolling.

Being out of town when the action went down, I won’t try to recap what happened. (OK, a quick recap: All trees but one came down by Saturday and the tree sitters stayed in their lone remaining tree until Tuesday when the University started building scaffolding until it reached the tree-sitters and the inevitable was clear and they came down after getting a couple of minor “concessions”.)

A couple of comments though:

1. The scaffolding was an awesome way to go. It ensured safety to a degree that I didn’t think was possible. But when there is a large platform 5 feet below the tree-sitters platform, it’s pretty clear that the tree-sitters would have come down safely if they hadn’t surrendered. Way to go University for doing their research and finding the best way to extract the tree-sitters.

2. These “concessions” are a bit worrisome. I’ve read a bunch about it, and it might entirely be spin from the tree-sitters, but if the University made any concessions no matter how small, it was too big. Promising to “involve the community in future land use issues” is an implicit admission that they didn’t “involve the community” in past decisions. Which is down-right ridiculous. The only side that has been willing to compromise is the University. They made all kinds of concessions throughout this process and in the end ZERO concessions where made by the tree-sitters until it was blatently obvious they had both lost and they had 10 minutes left before being easily yet forcibly removed from the trees.

I’m sorry, ZERO CONCESSIONS is the right way to go here. Don’t give them any encouragement for the future. Even if they didn’t gain anything here, if they BELIEVE they did, it will embolden them in the future to continue to pull stupid pranks/protests like this in the future. It is absolutely critical they realize that they completely wasted two years of their lives without gaining a single thing. It’s the only way they and their successors will realize how stupid it is to protest like this.

But overall, today is a day to celebrate. The SAHPC is in progress and completely unhindered at this point. They can construct away and make progress as fast as they can. That is enough to be joyous about.

GO BEARS!

According to the Chronicle and other sources, the University managed to cut down EVERY tree, minus the one the tree-sitters were in already. That’s pretty impressive and quick work. Now they’re just waiting for the tree-sitters to let reality sink in and come down voluntarily.

Well, apparently all it took for the trees to be cut down is for me to leave the state. They started cutting down the trees today, getting somewhere between 4 and 10 of them down as well as pruning more thoroughly the trees around the redwood the tree-sitters are in to further isolate them in that tree. Looks like the goal is to get all of the trees, minus the one that the tree-sitters have been isolated to, down over the weekend. The hope is that by that point, the remaining 4 tree-sitters will be demoralized enough to finally come down and the final tree can be cut down.

If not, I’m sure the University will do the forcible removal sometime shortly thereafter.

A couple notes about the new lies being spread by the tree-sitters and their supporters:

I saw the raw video of the UC Spokeman Dan Mogulof’s press conference this morning. He in no way was deceptive about what was going to be done today. Some of the reporting on that press conference may not have been the best, but he clearly stated that they were starting the project now and they would not be waiting to do anything, including cutting the trees down. He said the first thing they were going to do is prune around the redwood but that the rest of the steps to start the project as soon as possible. Particularly since he used the phrase “this morning” in regards to the pruning there was no indication that the only activity today would be pruning as the tree-sitters have accused.

The other thing they’ve been saying is that the University would give three-days warning before starting. Those who’ve been following my posts on the subject know that’s not true, but what they’re trying to manipulate was a two-day promise (and it cracks me up that they turned it into three) and that two-day promise was that they would wait two days after the trial hearing ended for the other side to be able to file an appeal. There was no promise that they’d wait any further after the appellate junction.

But the lies are no surprise. They’ve been using any lie they can for the last two years to try and win some public support, which has been few and far between outside of a small radical community in Berkeley.

WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!

I’ll just quote the whole thing:

On August 26, 2008 the Alameda County Superior Court filed an “Order after Hearing” (Exh. 26) and “Respondents’ Amended Judgment,” which was “effective and enforceable immediately.” (Exh. 25 at 281:10-11.) The following day appellants filed a Notice of Appeal. (Exh. 27.)

In prior briefing respondents represented that if appellants filed their Notice of Appeal and contemplated Petition for a Writ of Supersedeas and Request for an Immediate Stay within two business days they “will continue to take no further action to implement the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects until the Court of Appeal rules on any such immediate stay request.” (Exh. 20 at 246:7-13.) Appellants objected to what they characterized as the respondents’ attempt to substitute a voluntary stay in lieu of a court-ordered stay. (Exh. 24.)

On August 28, 2008 appellants filed a Petition for Writ of Supersedeas, Mandate, Prohibition or Other Appropriate Relief and supporting documents. The petition prays for inter alia an immediate temporary stay of the University’s threatened construction-related activities, an immediate 20-day extension pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5, subdivision (g), and the issuance of a writ of supersedeas.

On September 3, 2008 respondents filed an Opposition to Request for Immediate Stay and to Petition for Writ of Supersedeas, etc. and also moved that we take judicial notice of six volumes of exhibits previously filed in conjunction with an earlier writ petition, California Oak Foundation v. The Regents of the University of California, A122172. By operation of law an automatic 20-day stay goes into effect if “a stay is in effect at the time of filing the notice of appeal.” (Code Civ. Proc. sec. 1094.5, subd. (g).) In the context of this statute, “stay” refers to a judicial stay, not respondents’ promise to refrain from further activities. (Ibid. [“the court in which proceedings under this section are instituted may stay the operation of the administrative order or decision”; “no such stay shall be imposed or continued if the court is satisfied that it is against the public interest.”].)

Because there was no judicial stay in effect when the notice of appeal was filed, the statutory 20-day stay is not in effect. The motion that we take judicial notice, pursuant to Evidence Code sections 459 and 452, subdivision (d)(2) of the six volumes of exhibits previously lodged with this court in conjunction with Case Number A122172 is granted. The petition for a writ of supersedeas, mandate and/or prohibition and the related requests for an immediate stay and a 20-day stay are denied. (McGuiness, P.J., Siggins, J., and Jenkins, J.)

What does this mean? It means it is time to fire up the chainsaws! The University can start cutting anytime.

Another update on the SAHPC published over at BearTerritory.net:

http://cal.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=843908

I was so busy with interviews and press conferences and practices yesterday I didn’t get a chance to chech for a ruling. Looks like late yesterday Judge Miller issued her updated judgment. And the key phrase is the last line:

…the preliminary injunction entered on February 9, 2007, is hearby dissolved. The Amended Judgment is effective and enforcable immediately.

Some of you are thinking, “Woohoo! Trees come down today!”

But remember, the University has promised that with this ruling, they will not start on construction immediately (and that means not cutting down the trees) if Judge Miller ruled this way, even thought the court documents seem to indicate so.

The promise was they wouldn’t start construction until:

1. Two days pass and no appeal has been filed.
2. If an appeal is filed, the appellate judge refuses to grant an injunction.

So, that means construction could start as early as Friday if Volker and company don’t file their appeal, although nobody expects that.

What it really means is that we’re back to a waiting game again, this time for the appellate jugde. When they get the case, they’ve got a handful of options and just about as much time as they want to do one of the following:

My understanding is that the length of time we should expect to be waiting is on the order of a week, or maybe two. As an example, when the previous appeal was made, it was made on July 25th and the judge made his ruling rejecting it as premature on August 7th. However, from what I can tell, there are either no deadlines or the deadlines are so long that they’re not usually relevant.

Hopefully the COA (appellate court) doesn’t get gun-shy now that the case is actually in their hands and the trees can come down sometime shortly after the Michigan State game (which everyone agrees will still have the Berkeley zoo still in full operation on gameday).

As an FYI along those lines: read this letter to Cal fans with updates on how to deal with the protests and congestion.

Bearinsider.com has their regular article on the happenings in court today.

The key take-away is that Judge Miller did not judge from the bench, as I expected, but that she’ll rule in the next day or two.

But what was interesting is that the University made what seems like a minor concession to the other side, extending their two-day no-build promise to a promise to not start the chainsaws and bulldozers “until a ruling was obtained from the Court of Appeals” (quoted from the BearInsider article).

I’m curious about the actual language used in court. If the University promised what the article indicates they did, I think it’s a HUGE mistake. What seems to be assumed in the article is that the court of appeals would RULE quickly. That’s a huge difference from the court of appeals refusing to put an injunction in place while it hears the case, allowing for the construction to go forward while the appeal is being heard, and waiting for the final ruling.

While it’s defintely a good possibility that the court of appeals will reject the appeal rather quickly, I see it as a big risk to assume that.

Perhaps the language was more nuanced and it took into account the possiblity of an appeal without an injunction and my comments are much ado about nothing.

UPDATE as of 3:30 PM: The language was indeed FAR more nuanced than the article indicated. It specifically had the caveats I was concerned about and mentioned only that the University would wait until the appellate court ruled regarding putting a new stay in place. So basically they’re offering to wait until after the appellate court has ruled on an injunction as long as Judge Miller rules the way they want and the plaintiffs (tree-sitters, etc.) file an an appeal within two days including an immediate request for an injunction. If all of that happens, it’ll clear the way for construction to begin in a week or two.

In any case, keep your eyes pealed for a final judgment from Judge Miller in the next day or two and the associated commentary from me here.

Just a reminder for everyone that today the SAHPC court case is having yet another hearing. What about? I don’t anyone knows EXACTLY what it’s supposed to be about.

Originally it was about the request for a re-trial. But that’s no longer the case because it was withdrawn. However, by the time it was pulled, the appellate judge had made his ruling and it made it clear that Judge Miller was going to have to issue a new final judgement. So the hearing on the 25th hung around assumably to hear arguments about that, although the court documentation was never updated to explicitely say so.

Finally, last week the Panaramic Hills Association (PHA, the home-owners association) made a motion that, while the specifics of which have not been posted on the case webpage, it has been agreed that the motion will be heard on the 25th.

Add in that both sides have now submitted updated proposed judgments that the Judge will likely want to review and today should be a hodge-podge of discussions all around how to wrap this case up. Since that’s the case, I don’t expect Judge Miller to issue her final judgment today, but to take a couple days to review everything and publish her document.

For those counting, the key day is Wednesday if there’s any hope of getting the tree-sitters out and the trees down before Saturday’s matchup against Michigan State. If Judge Miller doesn’t rule by then, and it should be noted that she’ll have to rule the way the University wants in its entirety, well, expect to be disappointed on Saturday.

Looks like the University is continuing in their plan to limit the movements of the tree-sitters. Today they started pruning the redwood tree that all the tree-sitters are in and surrounding trees to make it more difficult for the tree-sitters to move from tree to tree.

Of course anytime a cherry picker or a chainsaw gets fired up around the grove the tree-sitters start their wailing and shreaking.

See the SF Gate article for more details.

The one interesting note there is that “Dumpster Muffin” is back in Berkeley although not back in the trees.