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OAKLAND—The leaders of California’s university and college towns took a step towards easing the financial burden caused by those educational institutions, meeting last Friday in Oakland to begin drawing up a long-range mitigation plan. 

Hosted by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Riverside Mayor Ron Loverage, the meeting allowed mayors, city managers, and city staff from the affected communities to share concerns and strategies about issues including land use, transportation, housing, city services and taxes. Attended by representatives from Davis, Sacramento, Berkeley, Albany, Goleta, Santa Cruz, Merced and Sonoma, the meeting was the second in a series that began last September in Sacramento.  

“It’s a fragile relationship,” said Mayor Bates about the negotiations between Berkeley and UC to pay a share of the city’s tax burden. “It’s built on past experience and current relationships. But personally I believe that the university and the city are working as well as can be imagined. Everyone has a healthy skepticism.” 

With both the city of Berkeley and Cal facing severe budget cuts, Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz said the creation of the ad-hoc task force is an important step to insure both parties create an economic relationship that each side can live with. 

“The state is cutting back everything, so we are all fighting for a small piece of the pie,” he said. “We’re all fighting for our fare share of the crumbs.” 

Several tentative decisions were made by the group including an agreement for meeting participants to seek local support for one college-impact bill recently introduced in the legislature by Assemblywoman Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley). Hancock’s proposed legislation would strengthen environmental requirements for new building projects proposed by any public institutions of higher learning in California. 

Four of the cities present (Sacramento, Berkeley, Goleta and Davis) also agreed to help create a database website for all the municipalities that would archive city documents that deal with university/city relations and projects.  

As part of a suggestion introduced by Berkeley’s former city budget director, Paul Navazio, the group also agreed to pursue possible tax legislation that would separate academic and for-profit projects proposed by state colleges and universities. The proposal would help the cities have clearer access to sales tax revenue from for-profit college activities, a major concern for all the cities at the meeting.f