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Without granting a hearing, a superior court judge Friday denied the petition of three Berkeley residents, including a city councilmember, seeking to ultimately undo a settlement agreement reached last week between the city and UC Berkeley. 

Judge James Richman rejected a petition to intervene as a third party in the lawsuit made by Carl Friberg, Anne Wagley (an employee of the Berkeley Daily Planet) and Councilmember Kriss Worthington. Judge Richman refused the hearing because the city had already dismissed its lawsuit against the university, his research attorney Chad Finke told two of the petitioners and their attorney Friday. 

Although Friberg had first filed the petition with the court clerk on Wednesday, hours before the city dismissed the lawsuit, that did not give him legal standing under state law, Finke said.  

“It’s not enough to have to have it on file before the case is dismissed,” he said. “It has to be granted.” 

Stephan Volker, representing Friberg, said his client was considering appeali ng Richman’s ruling. Had Richman accepted the petition, the settlement agreement between the city and the university could have been placed on hold. 

The petitioners were seeking to join the lawsuit as a third party on grounds that the city failed to adequately represent their interests as Berkeley residents in settling the city’s lawsuit against the university. They argued that the campus growth projected under the university’s plan would further strain city services and leave taxpayers with the bill.  

The settlement agreed to last week calls for the city to drop its lawsuit against UC Berkeley’s 15-year development plan and for the university to pay more for city services and enter into a joint planning process for the downtown.  

“I don’t think the issues raised [about the UC plan] should be abandoned,” said Councilmember Worthington, who voted against the deal and argued that the city could have squeezed more concessions out of UC. “If the city doesn’t address them the community should be allowed to pursue them.” 

Volker argued Friday that the petitioners effectively were given no opportunity to intervene because the City Council, despite public pledges to the contrary, refused to disclose the terms of the deal until after they approved it Tuesday night. 

“As a result, the petitioners were led to believe that they would have an opportunity to intervene in this matter in the event the proposed settlement agreement failed to adequately protect their interests and those of other Berkeley citizens from the environmental impacts of the university’s [plan],” he wrote in his legal memo. 

The council was prohibited from releasing details of the agreement until the UC Regents approved the deal Wednesday under a confidentiality agreement signed by both partie s in April. 

Michelle Kenyon, the city’s outside attorney in the case, reiterated in an interview at the courthouse Friday that the confidentiality agreement was legal under state law. In her memo, she argued that the petitioners “had an obligation to pur sue their claim [earlier] and failed to do so.” 

Besides an appeal, Volker said the petitioners could also choose to file suit against the city over the provision in the settlement giving the university a say over the future downtown plan. 

“The agreement hijacks the city’s ability to plan for Berkeley’s future growth and holds it hostage to the university’s pocket veto,” he said.l|