Consultant’s Report on the UCLA Hotel/Conference Center Now on the Web: More Questions Need to Be Answered
Prof. Dora Costa of the UCLA Economics Dept. sent the message below to faculty who signed the petition expressing concern about the proposed hotel/conference center. It is reproduced below. She notes that a redacted version of the report by the consultant hired by those who propose the project is now available at the Senate website and she expresses various concerns. You can find that report at http://www.senate.ucla.edu/documents/UCLACONFCENTERSTUDYDRAFT-RedactedbyPKF03102011.pdf
Yours truly would add the following three points to those made by Prof. Costa.
1) Because the report has just become available as a public document, you can be sure that neighboring commercial hotels will be taking a close look at it – particularly since the report makes it clear the project assumes that the hotel will drawn on non-UCLA business for revenue. They are unlikely to be happy about a hotel owned by a public university competing with them for business. News sources, such as the LA Times, will also likely be analyzing the feasibility of the proposal. My understanding is that the neighborhood group that has been concerned about the project may be seeking outside expertise in evaluating the business plans for hotels. It would be prudent to wait to hear from such outside sources for their commentary on the realism of the business forecast made by the consultant. Put another way, it would imprudent to march forward at this time.
2) The downside risk of this project will – in one way or another – be carried by the general campus. There is no way that UCLA would allow it to fail, once the commitment is made. So the general campus is effectively going to be the stop-loss insurer for a quasi-commercial hotel venture at a time of a deep and ongoing UC budget crisis that is unlikely to resolve itself anytime soon. That is the key issue here.
3) EVC Scott Waugh, when asked why the project is controversial said: “I think there’s been lot of sentimental opposition, and that helps make it controversial. People are worried about losing something that they’ve held very close to them for a long time, something that’s been near and dear to the heart of faculty and academic life here for 50 years. Change is difficult; it’s hard to contemplate these kinds of things.” That is a total misreading of the situation. If nostalgia is at work here, it is the nostalgia and resistance to change of folks who became accustomed to building structures on campus during an era when budgets were expanding; those folks are the ones who now need to change and adjust to a new reality. Faculty do not think that what makes UCLA great is the Faculty Club. But there seem to be some in the administration who think that the key to UCLA’s continued greatness is a hotel. Indeed, for them change is difficult and it’s hard to contemplate these kinds of things. (EVC Waugh’s comments are at http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/03/just-one-more-thing-eleventh-question.html)
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Message from Prof. Dora Costa:
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What’s the rush? This project may not have an entirely happy ending.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXzCOlPHFmc]
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a charge of British cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. The charge was the result of a miscommunication such that it attempted a much more difficult objecti
ve than intended by the overall commander Lord Raglan. Blame for the miscommunication has remained controversial as the original order was vague. The charge produced no decisive gains and resulted in very high casualties. It is best remembered as the subject of the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose lines emphasize the valour of the cavalry in carrying out their orders, even “tho’ the soldier knew/Some one had blunder’d”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade