Tuesday, March 15, 2022

CLEVER WAY AROUND A STATE SUPREME COURT DECISION

by Bob Walsh

Regular readers will know that I wrote a few days ago about a court decision that would force U C Berkeley to withdraw several thousand acceptance letters from incoming freshman for this coming fall due to the university slow-dragging compliance with an environmental review law.  

What happened is that on Monday both houses of the assembly, BY UNANIMOUS VOTE, passed SB 118, which essentially retroactively changes the law.  The governor signed the bill the same day.  The new law states that student enrollment, or changes in student enrollment, do not in and of themselves constitute a project subject to the California Environmental Quality Act.  The current law is over 50 years old.

The organization Save Berkeley's Neighborhoods, a pretty solid NIMBY group, asserts that students will actually be hurt rather than helped as they will end up with hundreds of students sleeping in their cars and campers due to the university not keeping up on student housing.

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