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.