SF Chronicle: City says UC wants facility to please football coach

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

UC Berkeley's plan to build an athletic training facility next to Memorial Stadium is unsafe, illegal and is going forward only to please football coach Jeff Tedford, according to a city of Berkeley court brief released Tuesday.  The city also told the court in papers filed Monday that it is unswayed by the university's most recent seismic tests, which show that the training facility is not on an earthquake fault.  "There is strong evidence that this is not a safe place for the training center," said city spokeswoman Mary Kay Clunies-Ross. "We're still very confident about our lawsuit."  UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom denied Berkeley's allegation, saying stadium improvement plans were in the works long before head football coach Jeff Tedford came to Berkeley in 2001.  The city, stadium neighbors and oak tree advocates have all filed suit against the university over its plans to build a $120 million athletic training facility next to Memorial Stadium. The city and Panoramic Hill neighborhood association both claim the facility would be too close to the Hayward Fault, endangering thousands who live, work and visit the area for football games, and the California Oak Foundation is protesting the removal of several dozen trees, including 26 coast live oaks.  The suit will be tried in Alameda County Superior Court Sept. 19, about three weeks after the No. 11-ranked Cal football team's home opener against No. 24 Tennessee. The game has been sold out for weeks and will be televised nationally.  As the trial date nears, tensions are rising on both sides. The city and university are trading accusations, trying to win the public relations battle as football season and the trial date loom.  Meanwhile, about half a dozen protesters remain perched in the oak and redwood trees next to the stadium, where they've been since Dec. 1. The group recently came under fire from the university for lopping limbs off some of the trees to expand their tree houses. The protesters said they were removing dead branches to improve the trees' health.

The university offered informally to settle the suit last month by halving the size of a proposed 900-space parking garage and planting two young trees and one mature tree for every one that's removed.  The university said it wanted to settle because it was confident that its latest seismic tests prove the new facility is not on the Hayward Fault. The city argued that the tests are irrelevant because the fault is less than 50 feet away and the facility is an addition to the stadium, which is on the fault.  The U.S. Geological Survey gave the latest seismic report a positive review, but when the city said the report was irrelevant, the university filed a state Public Records Act request for documents related to the report, the USGS review and the city's response.  The report, which the university is not submitting in the lawsuit, was completed in the spring, after the environmental impact report was finished and after the university's regents approved the project.  The new training facility would provide offices, locker rooms and training rooms for football and 13 other sports. The long-range plan calls for all employees, athletes and coaches who currently use 83-year-old Memorial Stadium on a daily basis to relocate to the new facility while the stadium is retrofitted. Some would move back to the stadium.  "The truth is, the football team will be going from mediocre, sub-standard facilities to excellent facilities," said Brostrom. "But many teams, like women's softball, will be going from no facilities to excellent facilities."  The women's softball team, which four years ago won a national championship, has no lockers. Players change in their cars, he said. Ultimately the issue could affect the university's compliance with Title IX, a federal law that says women's sports must have resources comparable to those of men's sports, he said.  Delays due to the lawsuits have cost the University $6 million to $8 million in rising construction costs, he said. If the court rules in UC Berkeley's favor, construction on the new facility would begin in mid-November, following Cal's final home game.