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| 3 Senior Civic Leaders Join Berkeley Tree-Sit Protest to Save Threatened Oak Grove 1-23-2007 For Immediate Release - Contact: Doug Buckwald-SOS/Save the Oaks at the Stadium 510-599-0044 info@saveoaks.com Today at 11:30 am, three of the most respected and enduring civic leaders in the city of Berkeley will take to the trees in support of the ongoing protest against the University of California's plans to cut down a grove of native Coast Live Oaks. "This is about values" says legendary Bay Area conservationist Sylvia McLaughlin, "it is crucial that we recognize and preserve what is important in our world and in our communities." McLaughlin age 90, will be joined in a perch among the threatened oaks by former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and longtime City Council Member Betty Olds. UC Berkeley is currently pushing plans to cut down 38 of the 50 mature native Coast Live Oaks in the Memorial Oak grove to build a gymnasium. Opponents of the plan are calling on the University to choose alternate sites. For the past 7 weeks a coalition of local activists and students have been occupying the trees in a tree-sit protest. The city of Berkeley Coast Live Oak Moratorium forbids the cutting of mature Coast Live Oaks, but the University has so far refused to recognize the law. Shirley Dean, 71 years old, was a two-term Mayor of Berkeley. Shirley graduated from Cal in 1956 and worked for almost two decades in the Cal admissions department. Betty Olds, 86 years old, is a long-time fixture in Berkeley politics and the senior member of the Berkeley City Council, representing Berkeley's sixth district. Sylvia McLaughlin, 90 years old, is one of the most important conservationists in California history. In 1961 Sylvia joined forces with Kay Kerr (wife of UC Chancellor Clark Kerr) and Ester Gullick to form Save The Bay. Save the Bay stopped the devastating process of landfill around the bay and is universally recognized as the pioneering grass-roots environmental movement of the 1960s in California. McLaughlin's own history is deeply connected with the University. Her late husband Donald McLaughlin was the Dean of the college of Engineering, a long time UC Regent and close friend of Chancellor Clark Kerr. In 1955 the UC regents created the first oversight committee on Campus Planning for Berkeley, chaired by Donald McLaughlin. Other members of that committee were Clark Kerr and William Wurster, Dean of the College of Architecture. It was under Donald McLaughlin's leadership that the very first Long Range Development Plan for the Berkeley campus was drafted in 1956. Shirley Dean (510) 524-8825 shirley.dean@sbcglobal.net http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/1209/dean.html Betty Olds (510) 981-7160 olds@ci.berkeley.ca.us Sylvia McLaughlin http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1998/0923/neighbors/sm.html http://www.savesfbay.org/site/pp.asp?c=dgKLLSOwEnH&b=886657 MORE INFO at www.saveoaks.com  << Back to Press Release Archive | Latest Press Release | Newsroom | | 
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