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Construction of a regulation-size baseball field at the East Campus site is looking more and more like a dead deal. 

Tuesday night, the City Council rejected a proposal from the Berkeley Unified School Board to expand the environmental review process on the playing fields project at the property, which stretches along Derby Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street. The proposal would have amended the environmental impact report (EIR) to include an option for constructing the baseball field while keeping the Berkeley Farmers’ Market at the site. 

The draft EIR released last year examined two options for the property: a “Derby closed” choice and a “Derby open” plan. Closing the street would allow for the construction of the baseball field but would increase traffic and parking volume on neighboring streets. The original option also recommended that the Farmers’ Market be relocated to another site in town. 

Keeping the street open would allowing the market to remain at its current location and would retain the curbside parking, but it would limit the playing field options for the property. It also would mean that the Berkeley High baseball team would be forced to continue using the field at San Pablo Park, which the district and team supporters say is highly inadequate. 

The council was asked Tuesday to approve evaluation of a third option: closing Derby without relocating the Farmers’ Market. The proposal called for the city to accept $65,000 from the school district to pay for the environmental review of that option. 

The district would have paid for the review because the city is serving as the lead agency on the project. Lew Jones, the BUSD’s facilities planning manager, said the city currently owes the district about $120,000 for its share of repairs to the warm water pool at Berkeley High. Instead of the district’s cutting a check, it simply would have reduced the amount of the city’s “bill” by $65,000. 

A number of community members and school representatives attended Tuesday’s meeting to make their respective cases to the City Council. Most neighbors appear to oppose closing Derby because of the impact on their streets. Others in the community say the East Campus site is one of the last possible places where a regulation baseball field can be built in Berkeley. 

The Ecology Center, which operates the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, took a stand against any option that closes Derby. In a letter to the council, Ecology Center Board of Directors President Leona Benten said her group would be willing to endorse the “less intrusive project” that doesn’t include a baseball field. 

Benten said the “third option” could compromise the ecoliteracy program being developed at the Berkeley Alternative High School (the new name for the East Campus school), and would threaten the viability of the Farmers’ Market, even if the market were able to stay on site during the construction project. 

Penny Leff, co-manager of the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, told the Daily Planet that she appreciated the work that the baseball field supporters put into finding a compromise. She said that by not building that field, the district would be able to devote more space to community and school garden efforts at the site. 

The council decided to reject further study on the “third option” by a 5-2-1 vote. Mayor Shirley Dean and Councilmember Betty Olds supported the expanded study, while Councilmember Kriss Worthington abstained, and Councilmember Polly Armstrong was absent. 

The council instead approved allocating $7,000 to complete the existing review process, by a 6-2 vote. Dean and Olds opposed the motion. 

It will be six to eight weeks before city staff completes its work, said project manager Ed Murphy. Under the environmental review process, a written response must be offered for each of the 200-plus comments submitted by the public last year. 

Once the responses are complete, the final EIR will be sent to the City Council and at least one city commission, Parks and Recreation. Because the city is the lead agency, the council will then decide whether or not to certify the report. Even if the report is not certified by the council, it will be sent to the school board, which will decide how to proceed. If the board decided it wanted to pursue the “Derby closed” option, that plan would still have to go back to the City Council, which appears unwilling to support closing the street. 

In any case, Murphy said, such discussion may not take place until September or October because of the environmental review steps that must be completed.