UCLA History: Westwood Movies
The Fox Theater in Westwood near UCLA in the 1940s. Same view at present with theater partially hidden by trees on Broxton Avenue.
News
Regental Lament (and maybe action)
Scroll down on today’s blog posts and you will find an odd item slated for the Regents Committee on Finance scheduled for March 28. On March 29, in contrast, there will be a discussion at that Committee on the budget and on tax initiatives on the November ballot. The background report laments the current situation and notes: For UC to remain true to President Daniel Coit Gilman’s promise in the 1800s to be the “University of this State” – to help fuel its economy and provide opportunities for its continually changing population and its needs – the University must strengthen…
pension | pensions | UC Regents | UCRS
Pension Cap at Regents
Those who follow this blog will know that a brouhaha developed when certain highly compensated administrators in the UC system pushed for a lifting of a cap on the level of pay considered for pension calculations under IRS rules. In 1999, the Regents applied for an exemption that would have lifted the cap. It was approved by IRS in 2007. But the Regents never implemented the exemption, have indicated they will not do so, and are now threatened with litigation. Apparently as a result, the Regents have a recommendation on their upcoming agenda to rescind their 1999 action. The item…
Finance?
One oddity of the upcoming Regents meeting is the placement of the report and agenda item described below on the docket of the Committee on Finance. The connection of the topic of the item with “finance” is a bit difficult to comprehend: Office of the General Counsel TO MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE: DISCUSSION ITEM For Meeting of March 28, 2012 REPORT ON REVIEW OF POLICIES AND BEST PRACTICES IN RESPONSE TO CAMPUS PROTESTS Following the incidents at the Berkeley and Davis campuses in November, the President directed Vice President and General Counsel Robinson and Dean Christopher Edley of…
Grand Plans for Westwood
With the subway supposed to arrive in Westwood (someday), apparently some planners and architects have been imagining the area with not many cars. The story is athttp://la.curbed.com/archives/2012/03/2_radical_plans_for_turning_westwood_village_around.php As for the subway, below is a sketch from the MTA of the proposed Westwood station: Source: http://www.metro.net/projects_studies/westside/images/final_eir-eis/49.%20Station%20Entrance%20Location%20Report%20and%20Recommendations.pdf
Can We Have a Room With an (Alternative) View at the Hotel Dispute?
An article by Erica Perez appears today in the online California Watch news service on the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center that is up for consideration by the Regents next week. Excerpts: The Luskin Center relies in the first year on a cushion of surplus revenue from the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center and the UCLA Guest House – both of which run healthy surpluses. … …”It’s disingenuous in the sense that this is a project that’s supposed to take care of itself,” said Daniel J.B. Mitchell, professor emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and School of Public Affairs,…
The UC-Davis Pepper Spray Incident and the UCLA Hotel Seem to Raise the Same Question
The pepper spray incident at UC-Davis and the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center matter seem to raise a common question: Do we have a problem – systemwide and on campus – about responding to Public Records Act requests? An earlier post noted the long delay in providing the UCLA Faculty Association with the business plan for the proposed hotel/conference center. The Faculty Association still has not received the consulting report that was supposed to be the back-up support for the plan. Presumably, that report was available well before the Feb. 9, 2012 date the plan itself was approved. And we did…
Judge bans UC Berkeley Occupy protesters from campus
Eight activists who participated in Occupy protests at UC Berkeley last fall have been banned from campus. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Paul Seeman on Tuesday barred the UC Berkeley students, community members and alumni from campus except when going to class or to work there. Protesters must stay away 100 to 300 yards from all UC property… Full article at http://www.contracostatimes.com/bay-area-news/ci_20217337/judge-bans-uc-berkeley-occupy-protesters-from-campus
Jerry Brown Says He Could Run a Campus and Lots of Others Could, Too
The Sacramento Bee carried a YouTube video with some text of the governor’s remarks, shortly before the CSU Board of Trustees boosted up some campus presidents’ salaries: …The Democratic governor dismissed the argument that the potential pool of college presidents is so small that salaries must be raised to remain competitive. “I think there are a lot more people that can be college presidents, maybe even some of you,” Brown told reporters. Asked if he could be one, Brown said, “I have no doubt.” “I have no doubt that I could be a college president, and I think a number…
There Could Be a Grand Bargain on the Hotel/Conference Center That Would Meet Faculty and Other Interests and Save the Faculty Center
UCLA has now given the Faculty Association a version of the hotel/conference center business plan dated February 9, 2012. The problem is that the Faculty Association had a public documents request pending since last November. There is a long interval between February 9 and March 20 when the February 9 document was made available. (It was made available to a neighborhood group on March 19.) You can read the document below. If you go to page 16 of the document (page 17 of the pdf), you will see that the notion of blending the hotel with the guest house and…