Author: uclafaculty

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Riverside and Merced say take our meds

Byuclafaculty

From the LA Times, Larry Gordon 7/16/12 (excerpt):…UC Riverside‘s long-held dream to have a full medical school was badly battered last year when the state refused to pay for it and then national accreditors wouldn’t allow it to open. Those denials were a blow to the UC system’s proud tradition of adding campuses and programs to serve a growing state. Now, UC Riverside is making what national experts say is a rare second attempt to gain approval for a medical school. Campus officials say they have obtained alternative financial backing, worth about $10 million a year for a decade, from private…

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The UCLA Hotel Did Not Happen That Way

Byuclafaculty

In a TV interview dated 7/13/12, UC President Mark Yudof talked about donations to UC.  He agrees with the interviewer, Conan Nolan of KNBC, that it is hard to explain to the public why in budgetary hard times, buildings are going up on campuses.  But he offers various explanations, none of which justify the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center. One explanation is that the projects have been in the pipeline 5-10 years and the bonds have already been floated.  That is not true for the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center.  Bonds have not been floated.  And although the planning timeline is fuzzy…

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Who’s in Charge? Lessons from the Penn State Scandal for UCLA and Its Hotel Proposal

Byuclafaculty

The news has been full of the Penn State University scandal in which a serial child abuser was protected by high university officials until suddenly the matter became public.  A report by a former FBI director was commissioned and put the blame on all involved in running the university including the trustees (equivalents of the Regents) for not asking questions and not doing the right thing.  Much ink was devoted to the scandal at Penn State in the LA Times and other newspapers.  But the most compelling analysis came on July 12 from the Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke.  Here…

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More Reason for UCLA Late Nighters to Worry

Byuclafaculty

Night-only closure of Sepulveda Boulevard between Wilshire Boulevard and Montana Avenue. Night-only closure of I-405 Montana Avenue off-ramp  Where: Sepulveda Boulevard between Wilshire Boulevard and Montana Avenue  When: Thursday, July 12th through Monday, August 6th. Sepulveda will be closed from 10pm until 6am nightly. The Montana off-ramp will be closed from 7pm until 6am nightly. Closures of Sunset and Church will be in place from 10pm until 6am each night. Closures will take place both during the week and on weekends. 

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Tax Initiative War Shaping Up Could Hurt UC

Byuclafaculty

There are three tax measures on the November ballot.  Prop 30 – the governor’s tax initiative – is a temporary increase in income taxes and sales taxes.  If it doesn’t pass, there will be trigger cuts including a $250 million cut to UC.  See prior blog posts for info including the Regents’ likely endorsement of Prop 30.  The tax proposition most in competition with Prop 30 is Prop 38 sponsored by Molly Munger.  Earlier in the game, the governor tried to make a deal with Munger so that her initiative would not appear.  That attempt failed.  Now it is being…

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LA Councilman Cautions UCLA on Hotel Tax Liability

Byuclafaculty

In prior blog posts, we have noted that UCLA’s proposed hotel/conference center depends on filling its 250 rooms for financial success.  But it can’t take commercial business and be tax-exempt or depend on tax-exempt financing.  We also noted that other related UCLA facilities’ policies with regard to taking in guests tax-free could be at risk if there is scrutiny of what is planned for the hotel.  LA Councilman Paul Koretz has notified the Regents of UCLA’s potential tax problems with the City and the issue of a public tax-free hotel competing with private tax-paying hotels.  He points to what seems…

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Chancellor Block Among Signatories to Anti-Sequestration Letter

Byuclafaculty

California has its budget trigger cuts about which we have written on this blog.  At the federal level, you will be hearing more as time goes by about “sequestration,” a kind of trigger cut mechanism Congress created to give it an incentive to enact a “grand bargain” on federal spending and the federal deficit.  Basically, if no such bargain is reached, massive defense and non-defense cuts go into effect on January 2.  The idea was that the thought of such cuts would be so frightful that Congress would concoct a grand bargain instead.  It hasn’t worked so far.  (But these…

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Doubt

Byuclafaculty

One of the routine things the Regents do when they meet is approval of the minutes.  As they reconsider the UCLA hotel/conference center proposal, they will have the benefits of minutes from their March 28th meeting at which they refused to endorse the project. Of course, they could instead just listen to their meeting on this blog where the audio is preserved.  But seeing it in print is also instructive.  All of the doubts are there from the tax issues to the why-don’t-you-just-buy-a-hotel questions.  Since the new proposal is much the same as the old (see our earlier blog post),…