News

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    Westwood Problems and the Hotel: An Explainer

    Byuclafaculty

    Westwood in the past seemed a more prosperous place than at present.  Above we see Bullocks-Westwood Department Store in the early 1950s (based on the cars depicted) and an ad featuring Bullocks-Westwood in the 1930s.  (The store was rebuilt between the two photos.)  Below we see the same location, now home of a Ralphs supermarket and a Best Buy.  There used to be a drug store also at that location but it closed.  Now it has been announced that the Best Buy will also close. If you walk up Westwood Boulevard from Wilshire towards UCLA, what is notable is the…

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    Not Our Scandal

    Byuclafaculty

    You may have noticed the article in today’s LA Times that is circled in the accompanying picture.  There is a long background story involved, but essentially a commission that sets legislators’ salaries cut their pay during the current state budget crisis and eliminated the practice of providing them with a state-owned car.  The car elimination step was supposed to save money but at the state reimbursement rate of 53 cents per mile for use of a private car, apparently the savings have not materialized. The current university reimbursement is 55.5 cents per mile for use of a personal car on…

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    Don’t Do It!

    Byuclafaculty

    Did you get a message like the one below in your email recently? Fraud.  Don’t click on it.  Delete it. Bruin OnLine is pleased to announce that we have increased size limits with several Bruin OnLine services. We have again increased your email quota to a final size of 1GB. Along with your email quota, message size limits have been increased to 35MB, with a per attachment size limit of 25MB. And finally, we also increased the file size limits of your online file storage. The original file size limit was doubled to now support 10MB files. Kindly log on ucla.edu/increase to…

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    More Bad Traffic News for UCLA Night Owls

    Byuclafaculty

    Wilshire Blvd. traffic problems tonight: WILSHIRE BLVD.: Wilshire Bl eastbound 1, 2 lanes closed at Sepulveda Bl tonight, 10pm to 6am. http://t.co/U6bCOXrIWILSHIRE BLVD.: Wilshire Bl westbound 1, 2 lanes closed near Sepulveda Bl tonight, 10pm to 6am. http://t.co/EuOYUVn2 WILSHIRE BLVD.: Sepulveda Bl reduced to one lane each direction from Salvation Army facilities to Wilshire Bl tonight, 9pm to 5am. WILSHIRE BLVD.: Westbound I-10 connector to northbound I-405 closed tonight, midnight to 5am. http://t.co/jp1EJHjI WILSHIRE BLVD.: Eastbound I-10 connector to southbound I-405 closed tonight, 10pm to 9am. http://t.co/ZaMgCzdK Source: http://www.metro.net/projects/I-405/

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    A billion here, a billion there…

    Byuclafaculty

    Everett Dirksen, who was the GOP minority leader in the U.S. Senate in the 1960s, was famous for saying (about the federal budget), “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Actually, no one has produced evidence that he really said it.  However, the quote’s relevance today is on the latest data from the state controller on the daily intake of income tax payments – which peak in April for obvious reasons. The daily tracker on the controller’s website which was noted in an earlier post on this blog reports that as of April…

  • How Low Can You Go (on a state pay cap)?

    Byuclafaculty

    In an earlier post, we noted a bill in the state legislature that would limit pay of state employees to the salary of the governor, about $174,000.  The bill exempts UC because of its constitutional position.  Nonetheless, should such a bill be passed, it would create difficulties for UC as an outlier.  The bill advanced in committee yesterday. State employees — even university presidents and top medical doctors — should not bring home more than Gov. Jerry Brown, a Senate Committee agreed Wednesday.  “This is a good first step to reining in the outrageous state salaries that Californians keep hearing…

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    Continuing Our Series on How Big is a 250-Room Hotel

    Byuclafaculty

    In previous posts, we have reported on some proposed Santa Monica hotel projects and their size, to give you an idea as to how big the 250-room hotel/conference center proposed by UCLA really is.  But rather than focus on proposed hotels, here are some statistics on actual hotels in the area that were reported as part of a proposal to remodel the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.Santa Monica   Miramar Hotel………….296 rooms   Casa Del Mar…………..129 rooms   Shutters on the Beach…..198 roomsBeverly Hills   Beverly Hills Hotel…….210 rooms   Beverly Wilshire……….395 rooms   Montage……………….201 rooms   Peninsula Hotel………..193 roomsLos Angeles   Four Seasons LA………..285 rooms   Hotel Bel…

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    Time to “Man Up” to the Fact that UC Funding is Not Governor Brown’s Top Objective

    Byuclafaculty

    Governor Brown received flak for a comment made on a San Francisco radio show last week in which he told the legislature to “man up” and make his proposed budget cuts. The remark triggered memories of former Governor Schwarzenegger’s characterization of the legislature as composed of “girly men.” Actually, the radio interview – apart from the man-up soundbite – was interesting from the UC perspective because of what the governor did not mention.  Apart from a fleeting reference to his father’s creation of new university campuses, which he cited only to justify his support for the proposed high-speed rail project,…

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    Hotel/Conference Center Lesson from Our Berkeley Colleagues: What happens when university business plans don’t pan out?

    Byuclafaculty

    Inside Higher Ed today pointed me to the article below about the UC-Berkeley stadium that appeared in the Wall St. Journal: (excerpt) As state legislators shrink its appropriations, it’s hard enough for the University of California-Berkeley to maintain the nation’s highest academic ranking among public colleges.  But there now looms a financial threat from another, somewhat unlikely quarter: the university’s football program. Until now, the years-old effort to renovate the school’s football stadium, which sits on an earthquake fault line, never raised many alarms. Although its $321 million price tag would make it one of the most expensive renovations in college…

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    It doesn’t seem to add up

    Byuclafaculty

    UCLA has been saying that it is admitting more out-of-state and international students (who pay full freight) but not cutting back on in-state admissions.  The latest numbers from UCOP, however, tell a different story.  Here are the latest fall freshmen admissions numbers for UCLA: Fall of          2010       2011       2012——————————————–California       9890      10913       9263Out of State     1819       2313       3049International    1304       2315       3143——————————————–Total           13013  …