Author: admin

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    Raiding the Bank

    Byadmin

    California’s University of ATM Joe Mathews, PropZero (KNBC), 7-19-11 California’s public university systems aren’t cash machines. But the state is treating them as such. Consider what’s happened just this year to the University of California and the California State University systems. In March, the legislature and governor took $500 million from each system to balance the budget. Then in June’s budget agreement, the state took another $150 million each. But the withdrawals from this strange ATM doesn’t stop there. The budget includes provisions that could trigger another $100 million each in cuts in the likely event that tax revenues don’t…

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    Recording of Phone Poll Concerning Hotel/Conference Center

    Byadmin

    A resident of the area around UCLA received a call from the pollster who has been posing questions about the proposed campus hotel/conference center to replace the Faculty Center. He made a recording of the call WITH PERMISSION OF THE POLLSTER. At the outset of the recording, the pollster acknowledges that the recipient has set up recording equipment to record the call. You can click on the option below and hear the call. The final questions which were for personal information have been omitted at the request of the call recipient. None of the omitted questions deal with the hotel/conference…

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    Governor Brown, meet MIT President Susan Hockfield

    Byadmin

    Governor Brown did not attend the National Governors Association conference last week. Had he gone, he would have heard MIT President Susan Hockfield speaking on job creation and innovation related to higher ed and research. Of course, Brown hears from time to time about such matters from UC officials. But what they say can always be put aside as just pleading from another state agency. MIT is not a state agency, not even a public university, and is on the other side of the country. Here is the audio of Hockfield’s remarks:

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    Dial H for Hotel? Part 3 – Questions from the Script

    Byadmin

    An earlier posting noted that the caller for the poll on the hotel/conference center, ostensibly being conducted on behalf of UCLA, refused to talk to a female neighborhood resident because there were too many women in the sample. Apparently, women are now being allowed to answer. Another recipient of a call (a woman) took notes on the questions and reported that it included the questions in italics below. She reported that the pollster was reading from a script and seemed to know nothing about the hotel/conference center other than what was on the script. In the script, the hotel/conference center…

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    UCLA History: More on the 405 Closure and on UCLA Parking

    Byadmin

    The 1960 freeway planning map shown below on the left depicts the section of the 405 currently closed and just north of UCLA as still under construction then. (If you click on the map, you will see a clearer image.) The two men shown in the other picture – taken in 1964 on campus – are screenwriter David Rayfiel (l) and director Sidney Pollack (r). The photo appeared in connection with the former’s obituary last month. However, of interest is the background showing a substantial open parking area behind Royce Hall. I believe there was by then a modest charge…

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    UCLA History: 405 Closure Perspectives

    Byadmin

    For those who feel deprived of easy passage to UCLA this weekend due to the closure of the 405 in the Sepulveda Pass area, here is some historical background. On the new Westwood campus, if you got there by car in 1929, parking was free and easy. There was no freeway on the Sepulveda Pass. But the road there, as shown in the 1930 photo was not very crowded. There were some public transit alternatives as this 1937 video suggests: By the way, the cheerful mayor of LA (Frank Shaw), who appears on the video, was recalled by voters the…

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    Will There Be an Overflow from the CSU Executive Pay Issue to UC?

    Byadmin

    The Sacramento Bee features a story today about legislative moves to cap executive pay at CSU. As noted in a prior blog posting, the CSU board raised pay of an incoming campus president by $100,000 while approving a tuition increase. UC is mentioned in the excerpt below. In principle, the Regents have constitutional autonomy although the legislature sometimes ignores it or writes bills that impose something on CSU and urges UC to follow. From kitchen tables to Capitol offices, two decisions California State University trustees made earlier this week have left Californians seething. …And now lawmakers are tapping into the…

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    Dial H for Hotel? Part 2

    Byadmin

    An earlier post indicated that someone is calling Westwood-area residents, ostensibly on behalf of UCLA, as a kind of push-poll favoring the hotel/conference center. A resident who got such a call today was told she was not eligible to answer because there were too many women in the study. When her husband was not available to respond, the caller declined to continue and terminated the call.And we thought that issue was settled some time ago!

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    CalPERS Issues Report on Vested Rights of California Pension Recipients and Covered Current mployees

    Byadmin

    Although the CalPERS report refers to its participants, most of the legal discussion is generally applicable to any public pension plan in California. Basically, the report indicates that both earned benefits AND benefit formulas cannot be altered, except in extraordinary circumstances, in ways that disadvantage covered employee. The report is available below from Issu and/or Scribd: Open publication – Free publishing – More calpers Vested Rights of CalPERS Members Bottom Line: No, they can’t take that away…

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    The Usual

    Byadmin

    It’s now routine. The legislature cuts the UC budget and the Regents raise tuition. From Capitol Alert, 7/14/11: University of California regents today voted to raise tuition by about $1,070, sending the total cost to $12,192 for the upcoming school year. After a recently approved $650 million cut in state funding, UC regents said they had no choice but to raise tuition to close about a quarter of the system’s $1 billion budget deficit. When combined with a previous hike, tuition will be 18 percent more — about $1,890 — in fall 2011 than it was in fall 2010. Each…