UCLA

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Regents to Discuss UCLA Hotel Legal Issues Behind Closed Doors

Byuclafaculty

Yesterday, we posted a listing of discussion behind-closed-doors of litigation that the full Board of Regents will be discussing.  There will also be such a closed-door session of the Committee on Grounds and Building to discuss legal matters related to the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center – which, indeed, as this blog has noted – has “issues.”  The closed-door agenda – listed as a “session added” on the Regents’ website – is below: =================  NOTICE OF MEETING The Regents of the University of California COMMITTEE ON GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS Date:   July 17, 2012 Time:   2:25 p.m. Location:  UCSF–Mission Bay Community Center…

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Regents’ Litigation Agenda: Behind Closed Doors

Byuclafaculty

Behind closed doors on July 18th, the Regents will be discussing various items of litigation.  The doors are locked but we do know the items: AUTHORS GUILD, et al. v. HATHITRUST, et al. – The case has to do with digitalization of “orphan” works at university libraries, not just UC, a project generally supported by university libraries around the U.S.  “Orphan” works are older books that are out of print and either out of copyright or whose copyright holders cannot be determined.  BAKER, et al. v. KATEHI, et. al. – Mediation Scheduled – Constitutional and State Law Claims Arising from…

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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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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),…

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The Hotel: It’s Twins!

Byuclafaculty

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…

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Will the UCLA Hotel Pass the Sniff Test in November?

Byuclafaculty

We noted in a blog posting yesterday that the UCLA proposal for a 250-room hotel/conference center is back on the Regents’ July agenda.  Also on the agenda is discussion of the recently-enacted state budget and the governor’s November tax initiative.  The Regents are likely to endorse the ballot initiative which, as prior posts have noted, is not polling as well as it should at this stage. So an interesting question for the Regents is whether the hotel passes the sniff test for wise spending of UC (and UCLA) resources.  Given all the fiscal difficulties UC has faced in recent years,…