Spare the Axe for Berkeley’s Trees
A Northern California logger has joined Berkeley’s Save the Oaks at the Stadium movement. Save the Oaks wants to protect a 200-year-old oak and 38 other mature oaks from being cut down to make room for more university facilities. The UC Board of Regents is currently considering plans to build a snazzy athletic center to the west of the stadium, along with plans to build a connector building for the law and business schools and a parking structure at the site of Maxwell Field.
However, logger Ric Costales isn’t exactly a tree-hugger. He’s not really in it to save the trees; instead, he says:
What I want to see and what everyone needs in these debates is a fair shake, and to make sure the rules are the same across the board. That’s what I support . . . and if the trees get saved, then that’s just icing on the cake.
What I don’t understand is why the Regents would consider destroying one athletic facility (Maxwell Field) in the same process that attempts to booster the athletic community. I love Maxwell Field. I get to see shirts and skins (mostly skins) play soccer on my way to class. I wouldn’t be able to see that in a parking structure.
Maybe if the “high performance” athletic center had glass walls and hot, sweaty, muscular guys on display then the Regents and I could compromise. Then they could do whatever they wanted with the oaks. Trees don’t do much for me anyway.
Complain, complain. Hypocrites. Aren’t you Cal fans always threatening to use an axe to chop down trees? (Right in the neck, in the neck, in the neck….)
Comment by Anonymous — December 2, 2006 @ 10:44 am
right on. I don’t really get it. Isn’t there actually quite a bit of space near the track stadium? They had classrooms underneath the basketball stadium. How big is this gym going to be exactly? Why not stick something across from the recreational club at the Tang parking lot, and stick a parking structure above one of the other nearby parking lots, or buy that low use building just up from tang with businesses nobody really goes to. At the Fulton/Bancroft corner there is also not much going on
Comment by hend — December 2, 2006 @ 4:54 pm
This is what we promised Tedford, improved facilities in and around the stadium. We figure if we’re going to put up another four walls for the football team, we should do it for all of the teams, but improvements for football are the center for this.
Comment by J Koo — December 3, 2006 @ 7:26 pm
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/12/02/18334741.php
They’re going to have to pull these people out of the trees.
Comment by cp — December 3, 2006 @ 7:54 pm