Berkeley Tree-Sitter Falls

by **sohotrightnow** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:04 pm

Old Hobart lax player is one who falls from tree. Hope Nate is ok.

http://www.nbc11.com/news/14574327/detail.html

**Sponsor**

by **Steno** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 3:45 pm

as I camp counselor I can agree that safety, indeed, ought to come first.

by **Beta** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:35 pm

MMM hippies.

Hill said although he does not want to place blame he believes the accident would not have happened if the university had not put up a fence around the grove.

Wow. Kind of like when I got a papercut 10 minutes ago....it's Office Depot's fault. Those greedy multinational corporations quest for money and power may have cost me some blood...but this crunchy tune I've been writing in this tree for the past 9 months is gonna show them! Screw trying to save acres of rainforest...this single tree on campus is the digs and straight up dialed and is MUCH happier with me and all my braaaaaaahs hanging all over its branches and defecating on it for the past year.

::puff::

:::cue comment about how we're invading the trees' property:::

::::cue comment about how the trees are invading the hills' property::::

by **CATLAX MAN** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:50 pm

Perhaps the tree sitter should give this some thought:

University spokesman Dan Mogulof says the fall is not the university's fault.

"The accident is very regrettable but to state the obvious, completely avoidable," he said. "Things like this wouldn't happen if people who are illegally occupying university property were obeying the law."

by **BigheadTodd** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:08 pm

I do not understand... The cops put up 2 fences, but they let them put a rope up to the tree to come and go? If the kid wanted to leave, why didnt he just climb down and walk out? Are they even students? If so, don't they need to go to class?

by **KnoxVegas** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:42 pm

These kids are just wasting their time. Didn't they learn anything from the idealists of the 60s? I mean come on, in no time they will sellout like that generation and be driving high end autos, worrying about if their kids are getting into the right preschool and will their investments be enough to retire on.

by **sohotrightnow** on Tue Nov 13, 2007 8:49 pm

I do not understand... The cops put up 2 fences, but they let them put a rope up to the tree to come and go? If the kid wanted to leave, why didnt he just climb down and walk out? Are they even students? If so, don't they need to go to class?

1. They've been up there since Dec. 2, 2006, well before they put any fence up.

2. No, they are not students. I have chatted with a few of them. Terribly misguided individuals who feel that they can protest for the sake of protesting because it is Berkeley. I'd venture the majority of them are upper-crust Northeasterners who decided to have their "Into The Wild" moment on their parents' dime. Mario Savio is spinning in his grave.

Here is a summary of why they are there:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... MOUK81.DTL

Basically, it is a sideshow for the real issue that is currently being decided in court. The plaintiffs are an Oaks coalition led by the California Oak Foundation, the City of Berkeley, the Panoramic Hill Association, and the Save Tightwad Hill group. The defendant, naturally, is UC Berkeley. The tree-sitters would have you believe that they are fighting for a good cause, and perhaps they are, but they are distracting from the real issues that are being decided in the lawsuit.

The tree-sitters have taken up spots in the trees and have put forth various reasons as to why the trees should be saved, including the contentions that the site of the oak grove is an Indian burial ground and that the trees are old-growth oaks that pre-date the stadium.

1. I have no knowledge of there being an ancient Indian burial ground near Memorial Stadium. One side says there is, one side says that is BS.

2. There are perhaps 3 oak trees that pre-date the stadium. The rest were planted by the University. There are 38 oaks in total in the grove.

The main issue is that the city of Berkeley thinks the University's Environmental Impact Report was not prepared in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The other issue at trial has been whether the new athletic center constitutes a seismic retrofit or upgrade to Memorial Stadium, or is merely a separate and adjacent structure. The former would limit the amount of further funds UC would be permitted under seismic safety law to expend on the Memorial Stadium upgrade- the latter would not. The judge has been presented with over 45,000 pages of documents.

A ruling is expected later this week.