Treesitters Face Deadline

UNTflyer · September 8, 2008

Berkeley -- UC Berkeley officials warned today that "the clock is ticking" for four tree-sitters perched in a redwood tree outside Memorial Stadium.

University police and other campus leaders spent much of the day talking with the remaining members of a 21-month protest over plans to cut down a grove of trees to make way for a $124 million athletic training center.

The talks went on as logging crews worked with chainsaws and heavy machinery to clear the trees that were cut down Friday, Saturday and today, after a state appeals court rejected requests to delay construction.

By this evening, 40 of the 42 trees in the grove were cut down and gone. All that remained were two redwood trees - one that will be transplanted and the occupied redwood, which already has been stripped of all but its topmost branches. An acacia tree was cut down and removed tonight.

"We're going to continue to talk to the people in the trees until we think there is no chance of a voluntary climb-down," said Dan Mogulof, a university spokesman. "But the clock is ticking."

On Friday, the university gave the protesters 72-hours' notice that they were ending the agreement that allowed the tree-sitters to receive food, water and other support from their backers on the ground, although the university declined to say whether the end of that period, at 9 a.m. Monday, was a deadline for settlement of the continuing standoff.

"The agreement ends at 9 a.m. Monday," Mogulof said today. "What happens at 9:01 has yet to be determined."

University officials believed they had an agreement for the tree-sitters to climb down today and participate in a ceremony of remembrance for a 200-year-old coast live oak, dubbed "Grandma" by the protesters, that was felled to make way for the new construction. But the agreement blew up, apparently after supporters on the ground argued that the tree-sitters should not voluntarily end their long-running protest.