Watch the Regents Health Services Committee: April 12, 2023 (& see Regent Pérez annoyed by a UCLA project)

The Regents met last Wednesday at UCLA's Grand Hotel. During public comments, the topics mentioned included disabled students, UC-Berkeley safety issues, the $500,000 hike in the UC-San Diego's chancellor's salary, Blackstone, affordable housing, divestment from gun manufacturing, a $25 minimum wage for UC health support workers, and management practices at UC health. There was a demonstration in favor of the minimum wage that temporarily disrupted the proceedings.

After public comments, the committee approved an executive pay matter for UC-Riverside health. It also approved a partnership with Children's Hospital of Orange County for pediatric congenital heart surgery. It was said that although the hospital was in the territory of UC-Irvine, this particular arrangement was narrowly based on talents only available at UCLA. There was then a general review of COVID noting the decline in hospitalizations and deaths.

The next item was a discussion of the creation of an Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy at UCLA by an unnamed and somewhat mysterious group of donors referred to as the "founders group" who insist that a new building will be necessary for the Institute. This project was said to be started pre-pandemic, but it then was delayed by the pandemic. The governor was including funding over a period of years in his budget, but now is proposing a more spread-out release of the funds due to increased budgetary stringency.

Regent John Pérez - whose background was in the state legislature - said he has been approached by unnamed legislators who are upset about not being in the loop regarding the project. He indicated that the Regents don't know at this point who the "founders group" is and they, too, have been out of the loop. He effectively tried to shut down discussion after the presentation by UCLA representatives. (Chancellor Block was among them.) One regent did succeed in asking a question about where the proposed building would be. Apparently, there are preliminary alternative plans to have it located roughly at the southeast area of the campus east of Westwood Boulevard and just north of Le Conte. After that question was answered, Pérez declined an offer to see a video prepared by UCLA about the project and ended discussion. He seemed annoyed that funding for a project would be included in the state budget without the regents knowing anything about it until now - and apparently still in the dark about the "founders group.".

The final discussion involved affiliations with religious hospitals and abortions in cases of emergencies at such hospitals.

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We continue to preserve recordings of Regents meetings indefinitely since the Regents apparently have no policy regarding how long they will maintain them online. You can see the meeting at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-health-services-committee-4-12-23.