ShareThisBy CAROLYN JONES
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
With the University of California football team poised for its first Rose Bowl berth since the Eisenhower administration, the city of Berkeley is planning a lawsuit to derail an extensive stadium complex promised to coach Jeff Tedford.
On the eve of the university Board of Regents' vote on the plan, the Berkeley City Council on Monday unanimously authorized a suit to stop the project, which it called extremely hazardous because Memorial Stadium straddles the Hayward Fault.
"It's a shame it has to go this route," Mayor Tom Bates said after the closed council session, "but we felt it was our only option."
UC Berkeley has been planning for years to upgrade the 83-year-old stadium, which is not only is seismically hazardous but also considered by the campus to be inadequate to meet the needs of a major university athletic program.
In addition to the safety issue, city opposition centers around a parking structure for more than 900 cars and a large athletic training facility that would be added to the stadium complex.
"Our main concern is not that they're planning to build these facilities, but where they're putting them," said City Councilwoman Linda Maio. "I think it's the wrong idea to intensify development near a major earthquake fault."
UC hopes to break ground Dec. 1 on the first phase of the project, a two-story, 142,000-square-foot athletic training center along the western wall of the stadium.
University officials promised the $120 million facility to Tedford, who took a Cal team that won only one game in 2001 and transformed it into a Pac-10 power. On Saturday, Cal faces USC in Los Angeles for a shot at the Rose Bowl _ an honor that has eluded the Golden Bears since 1959, the longest drought of any team in the Pac-10 or Big 10.
The city would like to see the stadium retrofitted first, the training center moved closer to downtown and the parking garage scrapped because it would add cars to a congested area and undermine the city's alternative transportation goals.
By strange coincidence, the starting tight end on Cal's last Rose Bowl team was Bates, now the Berkeley mayor leading the city's fight against the stadium plan.
Tedford, whose contract runs through 2009, said the school needs the state-of-the-art facility to compete against other schools in the Pac-10, both on the field and in recruiting.
