Cooling-Off Period Urged in Conflict at People’s Park : Berkeley: UC officials press ahead with construction of volleyball courts. Protesters want the site preserved as a relic of the 1960s.

As fiery protests against UC Berkeley’s construction in People’s Park cooled Monday, officials began wrangling over who should take responsibility for the troubles.

Three City Council members who originally voted to build volleyball courts on the site urged the university to suspend construction to preserve the peace.

Alameda County Sheriff Charles Plummer said he will sue the university if necessary to recover his department’s share of $300,000 spent by outside police agencies called in to quell protests. About 100 arrests have been made since Wednesday in confrontations between protesters and law officers.

To preserve the relative calm, the three City Council members called for a cooling-off period during which the university would halt construction on the courts and protesters would agree not to destroy what has been built.

But demonstrators vowed to keep fighting the UC plan.

Some said they will attempt to sabotage volleyball games by throwing broken glass into the sand courts, which may open as early as next week.

Campus police will watch over the courts for the first few days they are open, working with three “park coordinators” the university has hired, UC Berkeley spokesman Jesus Mena said.

Construction continued Monday despite protests from those who want the park to remain a relic of the 1960s Free Speech movement and a popular hangout for the city’s homeless.

Mena said the university has not been swayed by marches, sit-ins and rallies.

“People have a right to disagree. The group represents a minority point of view and now they seem determined to impose their will on everybody else,” he said.

Of the $300,000 in outside policing costs, at least $70,000 came from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, said Plummer, who has criticized the plans for the park because “every fool knows that’s a volatile place.”

“The university should pay. They are the instigators,” said Plummer, who served as operations commander for Berkeley police in 1969 during the birth of People’s Park.

Plummer said his department has laid off deputies because of Alameda County budgetary woes. He said he will bill the UC Regents for the costs of quelling the demonstrations.

Mena said the university has received no billing from Plummer, but officials are willing to negotiate the costs.

Violence over the park has sent business plummeting as much as 50% for merchants along Telegraph Avenue.

The commercial district has been virtually closed since the rioting started last week, with many shop windows boarded up.

Marc Weinstein, an owner of a record store in the area, said he has lost thousands of dollars.

“This business is totally dependent on what is going on out in street and at various times there’s literally nobody in the store. It’s been down generally 20% to 50%,” Weinstein said.

He predicted that the volleyball courts will never be used because of rumored plans to sabotage them. “And the million dollars it’s going to cost them to defend the use of the things they could have used to build a (homeless) shelter,” Weinstein said.

Police and demonstrators have clashed over a city contract to lease the center of the park from the university for $1 and to install lighting, toilets, and volleyball and basketball courts.