Page One

To the Editor: 

So the current mayor of Berkeley, Shirley Dean, wants to consider relocating and rebuilding the UC Memorial Stadium. 

This is a truly lunatic notion for several reasons. 

First, UC Memorial Stadium is the property and responsibility of UC, not the city of Berkeley.  

Second, the present location of the stadium is fine and dandy. It is on the campus. It is built on bedrock (not mudflats) and it is accessible to students on foot.  

The UC Memorial Stadium was built back in 1928, some 74 years ago. Any local neighborhood bitches about congestion and traffic on fall football Saturdays from anyone younger than 95 years of age are ridiculous. Football, foot traffic and automobile traffic were there long before any of the current residents were even born, let alone old enough to want to complain about it. If area residents don't want to live near UC, they can just move a few miles north to Albany or El Cerrito.  

The stadium is in a fine bedrock location to withstand future seismic events. For those Golden Bear home games, the stands are rarely even one-third full. The students can always flee the stands and occupy the field if there is an emergency. Wildfires are highly unlikely in the lower Strawberry Canyon area: It is filled with tennis courts and swimming pools.  

Perhaps the mayor of Berkeley should devote her energies to some of the real and continuing problems of the city: crime, traffic, the school system and keeping the public park toilets supplied with toilet paper.  

Go Bears.  

James K. Sayre 

Oakland