On the southeast side of campus, a major renovation of the university’s 83 year-old football stadium is about to get underway. On the west, near the heart of downtown Berkeley, the university intends to relocate and modernize its storied film theater and art museum, and build a 12-story luxury hotel.

In many American cities, such works would likely inspire enthusiasm from officials and business leaders hungry for commerce. But in Berkeley, the university’s plans – and the thorny question of their ethical merit – are sparking heated debate.

Welcome to the issue at the center of this city’s Nov. 7 mayoral race.

Incumbent Mayor Tom Bates, whose main priority is the overhaul of the downtown area, believes that campus expansion is beneficial, but opposes the new facilities to be built near Memorial Stadium. The expansion includes the construction of a student athlete center underground garage with nearly 1,000 parking spaces at Maxwell Family Field. Memorial Stadium is also scheduled for a seismic retrofitting and renovation. This growth is part of a long-range development plan to expand the campus’ borders with 1.1 million square feet of building space and a merge into the city’s downtown district by 2020.

Bates said he is in favor of the repairs being made to the stadium, but he is bothered by the developments being proposed near the stadium because of the Hayward Fault, which runs alongside the stadium. One of the most active fault lines in the country, the Hayward Fault poses a number of public safety issues that would violate the guidelines established in the Alquist-Priolo Pact should the university be allowed to build.

That pact was enacted in 1972 in response to the San Fernando Earthquake that left 65 dead and caused $500 million dollars in damage a year prior to its inception. It also prevents the construction of resident-occupied buildings along active fault lines.

The university’s lack of an emergency response unit – the city currently fields all emergency calls and sends fire and ambulance services to the university should the need arise – complicates matters further. The new facilities, including the rebuilt stadium, will draw thousands more fans and the attendance boom during events could raise demands for the city’s already understaffed emergency response team.

Bates believes the new underground garage would magnify this problem by increasing traffic on Gayley Street, a small two-lane road already known for its clogged traffic on game days. With the university’s Environmental Impact Report already issued in response to these concerns and awaiting approval from the city, Bates said that the issue will “most likely” be resolved in court.

“These are things we really don’t have to be posing,” Mayor Bates said of the developments near Memorial Stadium. “Our attorneys will go over the EIR and look to see if we have a case to bring. Hopefully we can pull it off.”

California’s state constitution, which grants the university exemption from zoning laws and property tax, is the city’s largest obstacle in trying to nullify the university’s bid for expansion near the stadium. The entire UC system, including Berkeley is protected from this exemption.

Those protections are outlined in two locations of the California State Constitution. Article IX Section 9 gives the UC system “full powers of organization and government.” That section entitles UC Berkeley to complete control of its property. Article XII Section 3 exempts state property from tax liability. Since the UC Board of Regents is declared a state agency, it is exempted from all tax burdens. Both of these revisions were added after the original California State Constitution was signed in 1849.

“The state wanted to make sure UC wasn’t going to be punished for doing something unpopular or doing research for things people didn’t want to hear about,” said Cisco DeVries, the mayor’s chief of staff.

Although development deals downtown have ramped up during Bates’ term, challenger Zelda Bronstein believes that Bates’ public stance on this issue does not coincide with his actions outside of the public eye. While she is in favor of her opponent’s desire to revamp the downtown district, Bronstein says that instead of staying true to his promise to revive downtown Berkeley, Bates is only outwardly catering to the wants of the voters.

Bronstein, a former chair for the city planning commission, sat on a committee to help design the proposed hotel and convention center downtown. Her biggest disagreement with Bates concerns his style of negotiating deals between the city and the university.

“The short of it is, he has no business behaving like a one man city council,” Bronstein said. “He is constantly overreaching his authority. This all happens behind closed doors. He’s betrayed the will of the voters. It is not the way we should be proceeding in Berkeley.”

The city’s “weak mayor system,” which does not allow an elected mayor to have any more power than a given council member, was enacted to establish a system of checks and balances to prevent this type of “overreaching,” she said.

Bronstein cited a 2005 lawsuit between the city and the university as evidence of Bates’ tendency to draft deals in ways that the city charter does not allow. In the lawsuit over campus development downtown, UC Berkeley agreed to a $1.5 million deal that would pay the city annually for the use of city services such as sewer drains and firefighting resources.

“The incumbent is telling Berkeley voters, ‘I got you $22 million from UC,’” Bronstein said. “What he is not saying is that each year the university alone uses $15 million of our services.”

Bronstein also said that the city is only receiving $300,000 for its sewers and $600,000 for fire and emergency services.

“This settlement agreement needs to be rescinded,” Bronstein said. “There are terms in it which provide for its being voided, such as raising the sewer fees on the university. Bronstein said as mayor she would ask the council to rescind the agreement and reopen negotiations with UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau.

According to Bronstein, an independent report commissioned by the city in 2004 showed that the university now uses over $5.5 million in fire and emergency services from the city. When its expansion plan is complete, the university will use $6 million.

While Bronstein hopes to rescind the agreement, Zachary Running Wolf, a fellow mayoral candidate, plans to employ a more drastic approach.

“I would propose a hunger strike,” Running Wolf said.

Running Wolf, an elder of the worldwide indigenous community and member of the Peace and Justice Commission, represents a grassroots, leftist approach to the election. A leader in the Bay Area’s Native American community, Running Wolf’s past accomplishments include pioneering AC Transit’s change from using diesel to biodiesel fuel and saving UC Berkeley’s fledgling Ethnic Studies program in 1999. He hopes to gain votes based on these accomplishments but like all the candidates, have no current barometer to determine his campaign’s success.

“Well, since there is no polls, it’s really kind of hard to tell where I’m at on the campaign,” Running Wolf said. “We have no polls to speak of, so I am gaining support from the left grassroots level.”

This mayoral election is unique in Berkeley’s history. With the term being shortened to two years to match up with the next presidential election in 2008, Berkeley’s next mayor will have a limited timetable to satisfy both the needs of the university and its surrounding city.