|
July 19, 2005
Cornell Police make new arrests on Redbud Woods parking site
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University Police have made several new arrests for trespassing and one for criminal tampering in the Redbud Woods. The arrests came after a Monday (July 18) deadline passed for protesters to vacate the West Campus site of a new parking lot. At 3 p.m. Monday, Cornell President Hunter Rawlings signed an agreement with many of the protesters who had occupied the site since June 6 to leave the woods by 8 p.m. and to let construction proceed. Those charged after the deadline were not identified as having signed the agreement, university police said. Ithaca resident Rebecca S. Nellenback was charged with criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor, at 8:18 p.m. Monday after refusing to leave the woods, which have been surrounded by a 6-foot-high chain-link fence since July 16. She was scheduled to appear Aug. 10 in Ithaca city court to answer the charge. Two juveniles also were charged with trespassing Monday evening -- a 15-year-old female who had positioned herself in a tree and a 14-year-old male, said Cornell Police Lt. Kathy R. Zoner. On Tuesday morning, Ithaca resident Sareanda M. Lourdes was charged with criminal tampering, a misdemeanor, and remanded to Tompkins County Jail after she was witnessed trying to put an unknown object into a vehicle gas tank, described as a cloth or cotton-like cylindrical object, according to Cornell Police Sgt. Chuck Howard and Chief Curt Ostrander. The vehicle was a Cornell Department of Grounds truck. Grounds workers were on the site Tuesday to remove redbud saplings for replanting, Howard said. They were also identifying wood to be harvested and trees that would be spared during the construction, Zoner said. Stakes had previously been put in the ground to identify those trees, she said, but the markers had since been removed and the land will have to be resurveyed. Seven more people were still inside the grounds as of 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, and Zoner said all would be charged with criminal trespass. The proposed 176-space parking lot in Redbud Woods is part of the West Campus Residential Initiative, which will house more than 1,800 students by 2010.
-30-
|
Cornell News Service:
Media Contact:
About Redbud Woods:
West Campus Residential Initiative:
News Service stories on the parking lot
Cornell reaches parking lot agreement--Full Text (July 18, 2005) Redbud Woods Faculty Working Group issues statement (July 18, 2005) Redbud accord allows West Campus parking lot to proceed (July 18, 2005)
Parking lot protest continues as police issue 43 citations for trespassing (July 15, 2005) How two acres of land became an issue of trees vs. cars (July 15, 2005) President Rawlings says West Campus parking lot plan will proceed (July 13, 2005) President Rawlings' statement concerning the parking lot (July 13, 2005) A message from President Lehman: Of parking lots and sustainability (June 8, 2005) Students stage Day Hall sit-in to protest West Campus parking plan (May 4, 2005) Appellate Division upholds Cornell parking lot decision(March 17, 2005) Cornell welcomes court's West Campus parking lot decision (June 10, 2004) Court rules in favor of CU in parking lot decision (June 9, 2004) Cornell files legal challenge to landmark commission's parking lot decision (April 2, 2004) |