Workers in cherry pickers and a crane-suspended basket cut down tree limbs and plucked out supplies of tree-sitters Thursday as UC Berkeley officials tried to end a 21-month standoff next to Cal's Memorial Stadium, but the four protesters defiantly refused to leave their lofty redwood perch. The developments came as a judge is expected to rule soon whether to lift an order barring the campus from cutting down the redwood and 43 other trees in the stadium grove to build an athletic training center. Protesters in varying numbers have been sitting in the trees since Dec. 1, 2006, saying they will not leave unless UC spares the grove. "If they want me down, they will have to drag me down," a tree-sitter who goes by the name Huckleberry told reporters via a cell phone powered by a solar panel attached to the redwood. He spoke from the protesters' highest platform, which appeared to be at least 80 feet high on the top of the tree.
Perched in two cherry pickers, workers from a private firm hired by the campus trimmed 22 branches from the redwood and four other branches from two live oaks about 50 or 60 yards away, said campus spokesman Dan Mogulof. By midafternoon, workers with long cutting poles in the cherry pickers and in a basket suspended from a crane had also removed tarps, a sleeping bag and other supplies from platforms and nearby limbs. Much gear nevertheless remained. One supporter of the tree-sitters, identified by police as Susan Rodriguez, 54, was arrested after she refused to stop blocking traffic on Piedmont Avenue in front of the tree grove. After the workers finished, UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison ascended in the crane basket and asked the protesters to come down, but they refused, Mogulof said. "We will continue to do everything possible to avoid having to forcibly remove these people," Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom said in a statement. "The last thing we want is for anyone - our officers or the protesters - to be injured as the result of this misguided effort."
Before Thursday's tree-trimming, the university consulted with a horticulturalist who said that pruning branches would not harm the trees, Mogulof said. UC officials notified Alameda County Judge Barbara Miller at 9 a.m. Thursday about their plans to trim trees outside the stadium, and gave her the tree expert's affidavit along with photos showing the trees they planned to trim. Miller ruled last month that the campus could proceed with building the athletic center, but the injunction blocking UC has not been lifted. The case arose out of three lawsuits seeking to block the project, filed by the city of Berkeley, the California Oak Foundation and the Panoramic Hill Association, a neighborhood group. The oak foundation and neighborhood group said they plan to appeal. The university wants to build the training center - estimated to cost at least $124 million - for the Cal football team and other student athletes. They currently used aging facilities inside the 1923 stadium, which sits on top of the Hayward Fault and is considered to be hazardous in a major earthquake. Opponents say the center should be built elsewhere. Mogulof said the court order that bars the university from construction on the site allows it to conduct limited pruning for safety and security reasons. On Monday, Miller will preside over a hearing in her Hayward courtroom intended to finalize her ruling.
The university moved to trim the trees Thursday because campus police resources will be strained beginning Saturday, when students move back into dormitories for fall semester, Mogulof said. "We are taking carefully considered steps that will support our ability to effectively manage this dangerous protest before our students return and before the first home football game on Aug. 30," Brostrom said. As chainsaws buzzed, former tree-sitter Amanda Tierney, 21, whose nickname is Dumpster Muffin, stood near police barricades on Piedmont Avenue and shouted at police and work crews, saying they had "no regard for (protesters') lives and safety."
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