Facing a $150 million budget deficit this year due to cuts in state funding and higher operating costs, UC Berkeley has hired Bain & Co., a Massachusetts-based consultant with offices in San Francisco, for a hefty $3 million fee, plus expenses, to help the university find long-term ways to save money. As Fark.com aptly puts, "Somehow, cutting consultant fees from the budget isn't likely to make the list."

After the recent protest over the 32-percent fee hike in tuition, which drew an estimated 5,000 students and faculty a couple of weeks ago, this move has served to boil tempers further. An angry employee told The Chronicle, "It absolutely sickens me that the majority of my 8 percent pay cut is going -- not to protect the core teaching and research mission of the university -- but rather to compensate overpaid business consultants and their multimonth hotel stays and weekly flights home."

Last night 24-year-old Memorial Oak Grove tree-sitter Nate Hill fell on his tushie after plummeting 40 feet out of the tree. He suffered both a broken wrist and ankle, but is in fine, fighting, camera-ready condition.

He was trying to get out of the tree, via a traverse line, to visit his poppa waiting down below. But it seems that he was not, in fact, on the line, and then took a nasty fall while trying to ride the non-existent traverse. Ouch. According to NBC 11, "Hill said although he does not want to place blame he believes the accident would not have happened if the university had not put up a fence around the grove." Oh, come now. One, if Hill hadn't been 40 feet up high in a tree to begin with, succumbing to the temptations of gravity, he wouldn't have fallen. Two, he "thought he was connected to a traverse line but he was mistaken." So? It's your fault, you sexy, klutzy bear.

"UC Police Chief Victoria Harrison said that the school built the new fence as a security measure prior to the forcible removal of the protesters from the trees," which should be happening...sometime soon.

But here's to a speedy recovery, Hill. (Little tip: tell the doctors that codeine upsets your stomach, and you'll get the good stuff.)

image credit: NBC 11

After a 10-month protest atop an oak grove next to Memorial Stadium, a judge ruled on Monday that UC Berkeley can now start removing up-in-a-tree protesters, as well as their ground support, even if police can't identify the protesters by name.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Keller amended his ruling from a month ago. At that time, his decree gave authorities the power to strip the environmental activists off of the UC-owned land, but only if they could identify the protesters by name.

According to the Chronicle, only one protester could be identified "David Galloway, 36, because the other dozen sitters wear masks and would not give their real names." And now? The students and activists protesting a proposed sports training facility in the place of the grand old oak are all fair game.

But the university (wisely) will take its time to proceed with any forcible action. UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof also claims that "this ruling means it's all but impossible for reasonable people to see this protest as something benign."


Image: George Derk / Daily Cal