Editorial
Lose the Litigation

Even though the city has healed one of the worst breaks in its relationship with UC Berkeley, a recent court ruling may give some agitators reason to open old wounds. For the sake of preserving a healthy town-gown relationship, we hope this is not the case.

Last year, city and campus officials applauded an out-of-court settlement that demanded upward of $1.2 million annually from UC Berkeley to offset city costs associated with the campus's expansion projects. And while some still feel the city sold out to the university in its negotiations, the settlement seemed to usher in an era of good feelings between city and university-at least, relative to the tensions of years past.

But last week's state Supreme Court decision in City of Marina v. Board of Trustees of the California State University which held universities accountable to their host cities for the negative impacts of their development projects could incite a flurry of suits against UC Berkeley for its long-range development plans. This would be unwarranted, since the parallels between Marina's and Berkeley's town-gown issues are superficial at best.

While the recent ruling also dealt with negative externalities of campus development, this decision applied to a university system that refused to compensate a city for fire prevention or traffic mitigation. That's not the case for UC Berkeley, which pays its host city hundreds of thousands annually to offset these costs. And while the CSU system pitched a cost-benefit type of analysis indicating that the benefits of its presence outweigh any environmental cost it creates, UC Berkeley has been far more accommodating-and realistic-when compensating the city for its strain on municipal resources. Last year it more than doubled its annual compensation to Berkeley, even before the courts had taken a stand on the issue.

The court's decision is not just irrelevant to our city. Using the Marina ruling to stir up old Berkeley conflicts would only trip up what strides the city and campus have made. Compromise, rather than litigation, should continue to dominate Berkeley's town-gown relations.