Posted on 09/08/2008 4:40:09 PM PDT by SmithL
BERKELEY — University of California, Berkeley officials said this afternoon that negotiations between the tree-sitters are over and the university is now considering what steps to take to get the four tree-sitters down from their perch within the next day or so.
Just two redwoods remain standing in front of Memorial Stadium. Four men continue living in one of the redwoods; the second tree is to be transplanted elsewhere on campus.
The university cut off deliveries of food and water to the tree-sitters at 9 a.m. today. In an update this afternoon, university Dan Mogulof said negotiations and discussions with the tree-sitters and their ground supporters are over.
"They just couldn't come to an agreement among themselves," Mogulof said.
Mogulof said a professional mediator crafted a proposal — that was signed Sunday by university Vice Chancellor Nathan Brostrom — agreeing to giving the tree activists a say in land use decisions, in UC's future donations to environmental causes and other things.
"We were willing to talk about a lot of things," Mogulof said. But apparently the ground supporters advised the tree sitters to stay put, and the university said enough is enough.
"We weren't going to continue with discussions and negotiations with them in those trees," Mogulof said.
Tree-sitters and their supporters said the characterization that tree sitters were ready to come down and the ground Advertisement support people talked them out of it is false.
What happens next is still a mystery but sources close to the situation say it's unlikely the university will use a "cherry picker" to bring down the four remaining tree sitters, who go by the names Shem, Huck, Ernesto and Mando. Using a cherry picker could be very dangerous. The university was using heavy machinery to flatten the ground around the lone redwood Monday afternoon.
"At this point, the campus is making preparations to quickly bring this situation to a safe but certain end," Brostrom said in a statement. "We will continue to urge them to come down voluntarily and sincerely hope they decide not to continue with a protest that is now without purpose."
Asked what will happen if the university tries to forcibly remove them, tree-siter Huck said, "We plan on standing our ground and standing for what we believe in. We really hope it doesn't come to that."
Ground supporter Erik Eisenberg, who goes by the name Ayr, said the tree-sit ground supporters made a proposal to the university Sunday, which included two requests. They asked that the university create an oversight body comprised of community members, neighborhood association members, Native Americans and environmentalists who would give input on UC's future land use planning process "so we never have something like this happen again," he said.
They also requested that "reparations be made for the damages." Specifically, they asked for donations to land conservations efforts and nonprofit Native American groups.
As of 1 p.m. today, a group of about 30 to 50 people, supporters of the protest, and others are at the site waiting for something to happen.
The trees are on the site of a planned $140 million sports training facility, which lawsuits have blocked since December 2006, when the tree-sit began.
But the protesters and their supporters have lost a series of court challenges and the university has court clearance to proceed with the project. The university has for the last few months been allowing the ground support team to send up one bag of food daily and water. That ended Sunday.
"The last thing we heard from (UC Police Chief) Victoria Harrison is they are not sending up any more food or water," Huck said.
The university has razed all but two redwoods. The smaller redwood is slated to be transplanted to another site on the Berkeley campus. The larger tree, its lower branches lopped off, now looks like a big, bare stalk of celery with a cluster of branches containing the four remaining tree-sitters at the top.
Two of the last four tree sitters in the last redwood tree in the grove in front of Memorial Stadium gesture to the media and their supporters down below after speaking to the press by phone Monday morning, Sept. 8, 2008.. The 72-hour deadline that the University set has passed and the sitters will no longer have access to food or water.
Send in the Marines!
Nujobs of Berzerkly —— as if San Francisco is not bad enough -—
Match, tree, gas - some assembly required.
Obama voters, no doubt.
Embrace the Idiocracy!
time to harvest some nuts,, get the tree shaker..
Damn community organizers
Cut the trees down with these moron in them. If they live..they can walk to jail. If not...problem solved either way.
Get one guy dressed like a hippie, the other like a cop. Have the cop give the tree sitters the finger, while simultaneously the hippie makes a peace sign. They'll come down.
What a bunch of weenies in Berkeley! If they hadn't been so outrageously rude to the Marines, the Marines might have come over and shaken the trees until these nutjobs feel out of them. Problem solved. But noooooooo. . . UC just continues to promise them all kinds of things if they'll just quit breaking the law and trespassing. Whaaaaaaaaaa
Instead of all the talking - don't let anyone send food, water or any toilet access to them & those loons will be happy to 'climb themselves down'!!
Instead of all the talking - don't let anyone send food, water or any toilet access to them & those loons will be happy to 'climb themselves down'!!
This is definitely a case of Berkeley’s chickens coming home to roost!
The schadenfreude is delicious - couldn’t happen to a more deserving “community”.
UC Berkeley should consider BB guns to get these vermin out of their trees.
With a blockade we will soon have STARVING TREE sitters! ~SOB. Call the UN. Call Jesse Jackson. Call Ralph Nader. Call the new Messiah.
A firehose would get them out of that tree, pronto.
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