Oakland Tribune: Judge's ruling could alter Cal's grand athletic plan

Carl Steward

One major obstacle remains to Cal's grand athletic designs for the future: getting the proposed $125 million student-athlete high performance center off the ground and out of the trees.   It's in the hands of a single individual, and a decision could come any day. Alameda County Superior Court judge Barbara Miller has until June 18 to render a decision on a lawsuit filed last year against Cal to stop the training center project.  "We're anxious for a favorable ruling," football coach Jeff Tedford said. "Hopefully, we can finally begin construction very soon on this facility, one not only our football program desperately needs, but our entire athletic department." While virtually all of the money necessary to build the training complex has been raised, the project has been delayed for a year and half. With a favorable ruling, Cal hopes to begin construction immediately to make up time on its renovation schedule and also avoid rising construction costs.

Cal has fought a long public-relations battle with a group of tree-sitters who have been living in an oak grove near Memorial Stadium that will be razed to build the training center. The university won an injunction to have the tree-sitters removed, but lawsuits were filed in October by the City of Berkeley, the California Oak Foundation, the Panoramic Hill Association and a group called Save Tightwad Hill. Miller ordered a halt to construction plans, the suits were consolidated and the case was deliberated in March.  Cal has been holding its collective breath ever since because an unfavorable ruling could have far-reaching effects, possibly forcing Tedford to leave Cal due to severely unfavorable competitive facilities and training conditions. In turn, Tedford's departure and a decline of fortune in the football program could have stark ramifications for the athletic program as a whole. Cal officials would rather not dwell on a possible adverse ruling. "We feel very good about the case that we've made," Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour said. "Of course, anytime you put a decision in one person's hands, you never know. But I feel very good about what we'll hear from the judge, and we'll have the go-ahead to move forward with this."

The training center is the first phase of an ambitious plan to upgrade athletic facilities that are regarded as the worst in the Pac-10 Conference and among the worst in the nation. It will not only house the football team but 12 other sports teams. The second phase of the project is the $175 million renovation of the west side of Memorial Stadium. If the university gets the go-ahead in the next couple of weeks, it hopes to have both projects completed by 2012, one following the other. A longer-range plan to renovate the east side of the stadium and add another spectator deck has been deferred.

The City of Berkeley filed its portion of the lawsuit based on the fact that construction of the athletic center to the seismically fragile Memorial Stadium is unsafe because of the potential for a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault, which runs adjacent to the stadium that was constructed in 1923. Seismic studies taken and presented in court on Cal's behalf generally dispell the city's claims.

"I have a hard time understanding the logic of the City of Berkeley in pursuing the suit because it's specious," said Bill Ausfahl, a retired Clorox executive and Cal alum who originally was named volunteer chairman of the Memorial Stadium fundraising effort by athletic director John Kasser. "We started this campaign in 2000 and thought it would take just a few years. Now we're eight years later, and we're still waiting, with the need for these upgraded facilities more dire than ever."