Campus, protesters reach new agreement on supplies UC Press Release
Thursday, July 24, 2008

Faced with what campus officials described as a severe safety hazard — ropes ferrying people and supplies hundreds of feet above busy Piedmont Avenue — the university on Wednesday reached an agreement with tree-sitters that led to safe removal of a new supply line. Under the terms of the agreement, the protesters and their supporters will:

• Vacate a second tree they had occupied
• Lower human waste they had been stockpiling for possible future use against police officers and/or arborists
• Continue to lower waste on a daily basis
• Cease all efforts to storm, disrupt or dismantle barricades surrounding the grove
• Cease all efforts to force food supplies in to the enclosed area
• For its part, the university agreed to

Allow one of two people who joined the protest yesterday to come down without facing arrest or citation for his actions.

• Allow supporters to supply protesters with one bag of food daily
• Give 72 hours notice if the university intends to end this agreement
• Give 72 hours notice if the university intends to forcibly remove any of the tree-sitters
  

Early Tuesday morning, supporters of the illegal occupation strung a line from a tree on the main campus to the redwood where three tree-sitters were perched. Several bags of food were transported into the grove, and two protesters joined the tree-sitters in the grove. One later came down as part of the agreement with campus officials.

The action came hours after a final ruling by Alameda Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller, who approved the university's plans to build its long-stalled Student-Athlete High Performance Center pending appeals by the plaintiffs in the suit to block it.

The agreement, said campus spokesman Dan Mogulof, was struck "because of the very serious concerns UC police had about the public-safety hazard created by stretching these lines across a heavily trafficked city street."

"At the same time," he noted, "nothing in this agreement will keep UC Berkeley from doing what needs to be done to end this dangerous, illegal protest if the tree-sitters refuse to come down voluntarily."