City Council May Plunge Into Creek Dispute
Sasha Talcott, Contributing Writer Daily Californian, May 16, 2000

The Berkeley City Council is expected to consider tonight whether to plunge headlong into an increasingly bitter dispute over the fate of a UC Berkeley creek.

Codornices Creek, which divides Berkeley from Albany, runs through the west side of campus. Mayor Shirley Dean placed an item on tonight's agenda which would allow council members to schedule a meeting with university officials and creek advocates over the best way to improve the creek's condition.

The debate centers on an area of the creek between Seventh and Eighth streets, which is surrounded by a maintenance building and a child-care center.

The university, along with the cities of Albany and Berkeley, has tentative plans to improve the creek's appearance. City officials and environmental activists have accused the university of trying to force the creek into a straight path, rather than allowing it to meander.

Dean said she hopes to restore the creek to its wild state.

"We're trying to see if we can't get it into a more natural channel," she said. "An open creek meandering through this area would be a big plus for the University Village and the city. It's important to try to open up the creek whenever we can reasonably do so."

University officials, however, said their plan already calls for just such a "meandering" creek and that city officials' conceptions of a concrete straightaway are badly blown out of proportion.

"We know we don't want an concrete straight channel," said Jackie Bernier, the senior planner in charge of the University Village housing project "This is not as simple as the creek people make it seem. We have to do the best we can for the creek, but our goal is our residents and their needs."

UC Berkeley hired a consultant, Waterways Restoration Institute, to help plan the project. Bernier said, however, that the consultant advocated moving the maintenance building and cutting away the play area of the child-care center -- which the university officials deemed unacceptable.

UC Berkeley simply does not have the money to move the maintenance facility or a viable alternative location, Bernier said.

She added that taking away a portion of the play area would violate state regulations, which require that child-care centers reserve a certain amount of space for outside play.

"We can't do a perfect restoration -- the creek has been messed up for years," she said. We're trying to do what we can to improve it but, in order to do anything, there has got to be some compromise."

Berkeley resident and environmental activist L A Wood said the current plans will turn the creek into a "radical flood control project."

He mocked UC Berkeley's plan to create a "meandering" creek that adheres to its natural form as closely as possible.

"Meandering" is such a loaded word," he said. "What they are trying to sell is slight curves in the creek that are not going to change its volume and flow. If it meanders now, it's not going to meander then."

Wood also accused the city and the university of not involving the public in the decision-making process.

"It's just mind-boggling," he said, "UC Berkeley is moving toward phase two of their plan and some of the most important issues haven't been ironed out." He said the mayor's move to schedule a meeting with the university is crucial to halt the bitter warfare on both sides.