Protesters Voice Opposition To Temple University's Proposed Football Stadium
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Student and neighborhood protesters showed up Tuesday afternoon outside the Temple University trustees meeting to once again voice their opposition to a proposed $135 million football stadium for the campus.
Stadium Stompers carried the protest with signs and Temple students provided street theater critical of the trustees and their business interests, both sides separated by portable fencing and a line of security personnel.
Wende Marshall, a Stadium Stompers organizer and an adjunct professor at Temple, says even though the group met with the university's president over the summer to outline their position, it's clear the trustees have their own agenda.
"They don't care if people who have been living here since the '40s are moved out of the homes that they were born in," she said. "They just don't care. To them, the future of Temple means a football stadium. I don't know what they're trying to prove with that."
She says such a structure, planned to hold 35,000, would be a nightmare for the North Philadelphia neighborhood.
A Temple spokesman released a statement saying, contrary to recent published reports no final decision has been made. But the statement went on that the decision will be based on what is best for the university and the North Philadelphia neighborhood.