Page One

Flash: Concerned Library Users and City of Berkeley Reach Partial Agreement in Library Demolition Lawsuit

By Becky O'Malley
Wednesday December 01, 2010 - 03:29:00 PM

Susan Brandt Hawley, attorney for Concerned Library Users, has informed the Planet that a tentative settlement has been reached between her clients and the City of Berkeley regarding one part of a lawsuit filed in September which challenged some aspects of the city’s plans to demolish and rebuild two of the city’s four branch libraries.

The proposed settlement affects plaintiffs’ contention that the City amended the municipal code to allow demolition of libraries with a use permit instead of a variance, without carrying out the environmental study required by the California Environmental Quality Act because the changed language would enable significant environmental impacts.  

Details of the settlement will not be revealed, Hawley said, until the Berkeley City Council has the opportunity to approve them in closed session before its December 13 meeting. 

Still unresolved is plaintiffs’ second major claim, that funds from Berkeley Measure FF, which authorized the issuance of up to $26 million in general obligation bonds to fund projects to improve branch libraries, cannot legally be used to fund a project which involves demolition as well as rehabilitation. CLU seeks a permanent injunction “enjoining the City from issuing bonds pursuant to Measure FF and from spending bond funds for any library projects that entail demolition and are thereby beyond Measure FF's prescribed scope to ‘renovate, expand, and make seismic and access improvements.’ “ 

Concerned Library Users is described in the pleadings as “an unincorporated association formed in the public interest in August 2010, after the City's approval of the library ordinance.” Members say they support adaptive reuse of the City's historic libraries rather than demolition and new construction. They support the use of Measure FF bond funds only for the uses authorized by Berkeley voters by the specific language of the ballot measure.