News

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),…

UCLA’s Plan C for the hotel/conference center and the July Regents meetings has now been released.  It’s basically Plan B – the version prepared for the March Regents meeting – with different text.  Here’s the thing: As long as it’s a 250-room hotel (or whatever euphemism is used to avoid the word hotel), it has the same flaw.  How are you going to fill up all those rooms without taking commercial business?  And if you start taking questionable business, the local commercial hotel owners have every incentive to call the IRS.  Of course, any occupancy rate can be assumed for…

The Regents’ agenda for the July 17-19 meeting is now posted.  The UCLA hotel/conference center is back on the agenda as item GB2.  It is now called a “conference and guest center.”   UCLA still is in denial that a 250-room establishment is a hotel.  Perhaps it should be called a No-Tel in view of the denial.  The material the Regents will consider is not attached to the agenda in keeping with no tell; at least it is not attached as of 9:30 AM today but the link is: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/jul12/gb.pdf Other items of interest: As expected, the proposal for tuition…