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UCLA History: Knudsen in the News Today

Byuclafaculty
Vern O. Knudsen

Today’s LA Times has an article about the shuttering of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  Included in that article is this brief note (below) about Vern Knudson who was chancellor of UCLA in 1959-60 and after whom a building on campus is named:

…The main hall also featured metal acoustical panels and wall sconces, attributed to Vern O. Knudsen, an authority on architectural acoustics who also served, briefly, as chancellor of UCLA…

Full article at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-santa-monica-civic-20130630,0,7440128.story

Note: As I recall, the Auditorium’s problems stem from one of the byproducts of the state budget crisis of recent years: the killing of local redevelopment agencies.  It’s a long story but because of the intertwining of state and local finance after Props 13 and 98 in particular, the state saved some money by killing local redevelopment agencies including the one in Santa Monica.  If Santa Monica’s agency had not been killed, it likely would have been used to renovate the Auditorium.

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Byuclafaculty

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Byuclafaculty

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Dig a Deeper Hole?

Byuclafaculty

The plaintiffs in the case against the UCLA Grand Hotel have filed an amended brief.  You can read it at the link below.  There are actually two cases, one involving environmental and other matters and another regarding the tax issue.  The environmental case will be heard in September.  And there is legal skirmishing around the tax case. The tax issue is basically that if the hotel is a commercial operation, it has to pay taxes just as would any other hotel.  There is also an issue of whether the Regents can run a commercial enterprise and, if that’s what they…