BLUE | Bulletin: Why we’re suing the City of Berkeley

BLUE Bulletin

The status of our lawsuit against
the City of Berkeley.

Help us challenge the City’s illegal backroom deals with the University.

Petitioners Carl Friberg, Anne Wagley, Dean Metzger, and Jim Sharp sought a court order overturning the City’s May 25, 2005 Settlement Agreement with UC, which dropped the City’s lawsuit against UC’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). The City’s lawsuit had challenged the LRDP and its Environmental Impact Report (EIR) because they failed to adequately disclose and mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of the LRDP on the City.

Our lawsuit challenges the City’s Settlement Agreement with UC on several grounds.

First, the Settlement Agreement grants UC a veto over the City’s EIR on the new Downtown Area Plan.

Second, it grants UC a veto over the Downtown Area Plan itself.
In doing so, the Settlement Agreement contracts away the City Council’s right to independently exercise its police power in the future over the private lands within the Downtown Area that are subject to the City’s planning and zoning powers.

Third, the Settlement Agreement prevents the City from recovering adequate monetary mitigation from UC to offset the LRDP’s fiscal impacts on the City’s sewer, fire, police, traffic, parking, and other municipal services.

We are appealing Judge Lee’s ruling dismissing our lawsuit against the Settlement Agreement, because her ruling failed to recognize that the Settlement Agreement (1) violates CEQA by granting UC a veto over the City’s EIR, (2) gives UC a veto over the City’s planning and zoning of privately owned parcels within the Downtown Area, and (3) deprives the City of revenue critically needed to defray the fiscal impacts on City services of UC’s planned growth.

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Support BLUE in challenging the City’s
secret sellout to UC.

Print your contribution form and mail it with your check payable to Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker
to Dean Metzger, 1 Hazel Rd., Berkeley, CA 94705.

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• Backroom town-gown deal:
   A bad deal for Berkeley
   Handbill

• The City’s secret sellout to UC
   Analysis

• Berkeleyans outraged by UC settlement agreement
   Press release
   25 May 2005

• 2020 LRDP litigation settlement agreement
   between the City of Berkeley and UC (pdf)
   25 May 2005

• Friberg v. Bates
   First amended petition & complaint against
   the City of Berkeley and UC (pdf, 180K)
   Filed 29 November 2005

• Friberg v. Bates
   Motion for peremptory writs of mandate and
   prohibition (pdf, 48K)
   Filed 30 December 2005

• Friberg v. Bates
   Memorandum in support of motion for peremptory
   writs of mandate and prohibition (pdf, 200K)
   Filed 30 December 2005

• Friberg v. Bates
   Petitioners’ memorandum in opposition to
   demurrer by the City of Berkeley and UC (pdf, 340K)
   Filed 30 January 2006

• Friberg v. Bates
   Petitioners’ supplemental brief in opposition to
   demurrer by the City of Berkeley and UC (pdf, 76K)
   Filed 18 April 2006

• Friberg v. Bates
   Judge’s order granting Petitioners relief
   from dismissal (pdf, 124K)
   4 April 2006

• Friberg v. Bates
   Judge’s order denying petition for writs of mandate
   (pdf, 1.2 MB)
   5 April 2007