(BCN) BERKELEY Tree-sitting protesters who oppose a massive, $125 million development project in the area of the University of California, Berkeley football stadium said Tuesday that the area is a burial ground for indigenous tribes. Protesters say one of the issues developers are required to address in obtaining approval is the possible presence of archeological sites. They say that Native American community leaders have uncovered paperwork that indicates that the oak grove where tree-sitters have perched since Dec. 2 is a burial ground. Zachary Running Wolf, a tree sit-in organizer, and others will hold a news conference at the oak grove at 5 p.m. Tuesday to announce unexamined archaeological sites in the area next to Memorial Stadium.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller issued a preliminary injunction on Jan. 29 that halted the university's plans to build an athletic training center and six other facilities near the stadium for a total of 451,000 square feet of new construction. In addition to a new training facility, the university wants to build a four-story underground parking lot with more than 900 spaces as well as new facilities for its law and business schools. A hearing on the merits of lawsuits filed against the university by the California Oak Foundation, which represents the tree protesters, the city of Berkeley and a neighborhood group is expected to be held this summer. Tree protesters say the land to which the university claims ownership is the ancestral land of a now-extinct tribe and is surrounded by land belonging to another tribe, the Ohlone tribe.
Protesters say that according to papers that were recently uncovered, burial sites under the adjacent Memorial stadium were destroyed and removed when the stadium was built.
1 comment:
We shouldn't build because an extinct tribe left a burial ground that was destroyed and removed, 80 years ago.
Argument sounds ROCK SOLID to me.
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