Anyone know more? If it isn't a self-driving car, what is it and why is it there?
Parking spots currently available for student daily permits will be reallocated for long-term permits, such as quarterly permits, the spokesperson said in the statement. Quarterly permits cost $324 for commuter student parking. There are about 22,000 parking spaces serving almost 90,000 people on campus daily, the spokesperson said, adding that parking structures 2, 3, 4, 7 and 32 could be impacted by the change...
Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2025/11/16/daily-student-parking-permits-to-be-significantly-limited-beginning-january-2026.
NOTE: This policy discourages the use of public transit, presumably not the policy goal of UCLA. If you push students to buy quarterly permits, rather than buying a costly daily pass, the marginal cost to those permit holders of parking at UCLA becomes Zero. This is Economic 1. Just saying...
Full story https://dailybruin.com/2025/09/20/north-westwood-neighborhood-council-recap-sept-9.
For an interview with Prof. Shoup, go to:
One of University of California, Berkeley’s student housing complexes has been enduring a game of ping-pong between its landlords and tenants regarding recent rent hikes and the alleged violation of some residents’ union contracts. After allegedly “abruptly leaving” the Zoom conference call for negotiations, University Village’s Associate Vice Chancellor canceled the meeting. Now, residents are urging UC to negotiate with them — again — in good faith.
University Village, in Albany, houses over 900 undergraduate, graduate and post-doc students. Many are low-income residents facing debt from college loans or medical bills. Since they are older students, many also have children to care for. On July 1, UCB imposed a $64 monthly parking fee, accumulating over $750 yearly. Rent prices have also increased 4% since July 4 — the third consecutive year UC has increased its yearly prices by 4%.
A memo to residents read in part: “All Resident, Employee, and Guest vehicles parking on the grounds of University Village are required to have a valid Parking Permit or payment of the Visitor Parking Fee.”
“Before implementing virtual permits, we had many incidents of parking by non-residents from the surrounding area. This fee will help cover the cost to better enforce these violations, and we have seen positive results over the past academic year,” Elisa Smith with Cal’s Department of Student Affairs told KRON4.
Since imposing the fees, UC Berkeley has allegedly issued “hundreds of parking citations” to University Village residents “in an effort to quash the residents’ organized effort to stop new parking fees and rent hikes at the Village,” Kris Libunao, a UC Berkeley grad student and UC Village resident told KRON4.
Libunao said that since the new fees and citations were imposed, more than 300 residents have allegedly refused to pay them. After rescheduling the meeting twice, on Tuesday evening, over 130 residents gathered to address the recent price hikes with UC Berkeley’s Associate Vice Chancellor Jo Mackness to reach a “fair agreement on parking fees and rent price hikes,” Libunao said, alleging the rent hikes are also a violation of union contracts. Upon entering the Zoom meeting, Mackness “abruptly left,” Libunao said.
“We prepared for weeks to reach an agreement with UC Berkeley, and they just walked out without even saying a word to us,” said Ninel Melkonyan, a UAW 4811 member, parent, and resident at the Village. “It was incredibly disrespectful and disappointing.” ...
According to Libunao and UAW 4811 members, residents are proposing that UC offer “a base rent reduction to offset the new monthly fee, waive all citations issued in the last 12 months, and engage in negotiations in good faith.” Smith claims “these meetings were not negotiations,” as the new parking fee had already been implemented. As for the rent hikes, Smith claims UC “communicated well in advance to resident families and financial aid resources are available to student residents.”
Full story at https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/uc-berkeley-official-allegedly-leaves-cancels-negotiations-concerning-student-housing-rent-hikes/.
At a press conference Thursday, the residents expressed their discontent after the university imposed a $64 monthly parking fee on July 1 at University Village, a nearly 974-unit residential community for graduate students, post-doc researchers and others. Residents also received a 4% rent increase on July 1 — the third year in a row of consecutive 4% increases. According to the university’s website, residents at the Village pay between $2,090 for one-bedroom units and $3,455 for three-bedroom apartments.
“The households are refusing to pay the fee … to show the university that this is in fact a serious issue, and they can’t simply change the terms of their tenancy and start charging these new fees without coming to a fair agreement first,” said Brad Hirn, unit chair for UC Berkeley Academic Researchers at UAW Local 4811, a union representing graduate students.
More than 450 households at the Village are members of the UAW 4811, according to Hirn. Hirn, who is not a resident of the Village, said that UAW 4811 is “overall concerned about reducing rent burden for students and workers due to these new fees,” and that he is “supporting the residents in their efforts” with his background in tenant and labor union organizing.
On Monday, residents of the Village delivered a poster signed by over 270 residents to the offices of Associate Vice Chancellor Jo Mackness, who oversees Residential & Student Service Programs, communicating their decision to not pay the fees.
The residents are demanding the university to drop the fees, waive monetary citations over the past several months from increasing monthly rents and to reach a fair agreement on parking fees, rent increases and housing services.
“We would also like to see better transparency on how money is spent. Our primary playground is in complete disarray and dangerous for kids to play on,” Robin López, a Village resident, wrote in an email to KQED. “Part of [a] memorial for a past resident who was killed due to domestic violence has been removed and not yet replaced. There should be funds to take care of the bare minimum for a community full of children. We would also like to have reclaimed access to our community spaces.”
In a statement, UC Berkeley spokesperson Adam Ratliff wrote that the planned increases in parking fees had been communicated to residents in February 2023. Mackness had announced in April 2021 the university’s plan to increase rents by 4% each year for three years.
“We wanted to give our residents plenty of time to plan accordingly, which is why we first offered virtual parking permits at no cost for the 2023–24 academic year with the notice that we would need to charge for the permits on July 1, 2024, for the 2024–25 academic year,” Ratliff wrote...
Full story at https://www.kqed.org/news/11993792/uc-berkeley-students-families-refuse-to-pay-new-fees-at-university-owned-housing.
https://bruinepermit.t2hosted.com/Account/Portal. Follow the instructions there.
The Daily Bruin tweeted the information above. Apparently, Bruin tweets have supplanted Bruin Alerts. Yours truly is aware of a meeting in Murphy Hall for later this week being cancelled along with a dinner meeting at the Faculty Club due to expectations of further disturbances, possibly near Murphy.
https://twitter.com/social_brains/status/1790073683555283082.
No further reports are available.
https://bso.ucla.edu/ reports normal activities but it might be advisable to avoid structures 2 and 9.
The resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay yesterday not surprisingly has led to substantial commentary. Yours truly noted an opinion piece in the NY Times by Bret Stephens indicating that the problem was Harvard had selected someone as president who wasn't a top scholar.* I'm not sure the modern major university president has to be a great scholar, contrary to Stephens' view (although engaging in plagiarism is a disqualifying Bad Thing). University presidents have to raise money and represent the university in the larger community including among the political authorities, whether their campuses are public or private. They have also to be sensitive to the internal academic community.
UC president Clark Kerr said the job was to deal with parking for the faculty, football for the alumni, and sex for the students. He omitted the political realm in his listing, the realm which ultimately got him fired. Typically, presidents have what amounts to a chief operating officer to manage the day-to-day affairs of the institution while they deal with the various constituencies and interest groups. Gay at Harvard wasn't up to the job on various dimensions as both events on campus and at the congressional hearing demonstrated, although reportedly she did well in previous positions. There is the old saying about a tendency to be promoted to your level of incompetence. Maybe that's what happened.
Beyond Harvard's problems, however, there is bound now to be a rethinking about university governance more generally and the role of the chief officer. The degree to which universities and their top leaders are responsible for student actions keeps coming up, intensified by the Israel-Gaza War, but not beginning with that event. To the extent that universities provide student groups with official recognition and compel all students to pay fees to support various student organizations needs to be rethought.** Otherwise, the university IS responsible, at least to a degree, for what happens within those organizations. The recent uptick in union activity, including the high-profile student-worker strike at UC, suggests a need to revisit the current university labor model.
There may be a temptation by university leaders to keep their heads down and hope and pray that no further issues arise on their watch. An alternative, however, would be to set up a process to examine such touchy issues as changing public opinion about higher ed, concerns about speech, diversity of viewpoints, etc. Will any UC campus leaders do it? Will the Academic Senate? Will the Regents?
All is not well. Harvard's problems are not unique.
====
*https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/opinion/harvard-claudine-gay-resignation.html.
Apart from the Bret Stephens piece, you can find the letter of resignation at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/us/claudine-gay-resignation-letter-harvard.html.
A statement from the Harvard board that oversees the university is at:
A CNN chronology of the event is at:
 |
| Parking structure 32 |
 |
| Westwood Rehab |
Admittedly, valet service was provided. But there is always valet service. The end result was to overburden what was there. So, Murphy Hall, UCLA Health, and the powers-that-be at parking, somebody goofed.
Let's not have a repeat.
 |
| Click on image to clarify. |
Source: "Clery" notice in https://ucla.app.box.com/v/crime-alert-20230206. The notice makes clear that there were three victims and describes the perpetrator.
The Daily Bruin also carries the story, but doesn't make it clear that the parking structure 7 situation involved two separate victims for a total of three incidents and victims:
UCPD is searching for a suspect involved in multiple on-campus attempted robberies and kidnappings Sunday afternoon. The first incident took place near Parking Structure 1 around 4:30 p.m. and another occurred near Parking Structure 7 around 6:45 p.m., according to a UCPD crime alert sent Monday afternoon. In both cases, the suspect reportedly grabbed the victims, demanded money, refused to let them go and threatened to take the victims to another location. The suspect also claimed to be armed.
The victims are UCLA students, according to the crime alert. Officials described the suspect as a 25 to 40 year old Black man with a slim build and short dark hair wearing a dark blue shirt and light blue jeans. The suspect also held an orange or red blanket with him during the second incident. One victim, from the second incident, suffered injuries to her hand. The victims were able to free themselves in both cases.
This case is currently under investigation. Anyone with information can call UCPD at 310-825-1491.
Patch newspapers' version gets the number of victims right, but it gives an incomplete description of the perpetrator (to avoid profiling?):
Three women were robbed by a man who also attempted to kidnap them near ULCA (sic) campus parking structures Sunday, prompting authorities to warn students to be on alert.
The women were students attacked by the same man about two hours apart Sunday evening, according to the UCLA Police Department. In each case, the women were able to pull free from their attacker's grasp.
The first attack occurred around 4:30 p.m. Sunday near Parking Structure 1. The man approached a woman, demanded money and attempted to kidnap her, according to police. He held her hands together and refused to let go as she struggled to get free, the woman told police. She gave him her money, and he attempted to take her to another location, according to police. The attacker claimed to have a gun, but the woman told police she didn't see a weapon. She slipped from his grasp and got away.
According to police, the same man approached two women near Parking Structure 7 at about 6:45 p.m. In two separate instances, the man robbed and attempted to kidnap two more women who each escaped him, according to police. The second victim escaped with scratches on her hands, police reported.
According to police, the suspect was described as between 25 and 40 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, dark hair, brown eyes, and a slim build. He was last seen wearing a dark blue shirt with white lettering and light blue jeans. According to police, he had a red/orange blanket during the second incident.
The UCLA Police Department is reminding students and staff to:
• Dial 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency.
• For non-emergencies, program the UCLA PD 24-hour phone number into your cell phone – 310-825-1491.
• Always be alert and aware of your surroundings
• Report any suspicious activity to the police
• Do not leave doors to buildings propped open
• Secure your residence by locking all windows and doors
• Avoid poorly-lit or deserted areas when walking at night
• Utilize the UCLA Safe Ride Service and UCPD CSO evening escorts
https://patch.com/california/santamonica/s/iklk1/3-ucla-students-attacked-by-wouldbe-kidnapper.
Finally, the LA Daily News gets the number wrong (probably from reading the Daily Bruin story?) and also gives an incomplete description (from reading Patch?):
Two female UCLA students were assaulted by the same man near two campus parking structures, the UCLA Police Department announced Monday. The man approached the first victim around 4:30 p.m. Sunday near Parking Structure 1. He demanded money, attempted to kidnap the victim, held her hands together and refused to let go. The suspect claimed he had a gun. However, none was seen or discovered, police said. The man approached the second victim around 6:45 p.m. Sunday near Parking Structure 7 and committed similar acts, police said.
In both cases, the victims were able to pull away from the suspect and leave the area. One victim from the second incident sustained scratches to her hand, police said. The suspect was described as between 25 and 40 years old, 5 feet, 10 inches tall, dark hair, brown eyes and a slim build. He was last seen wearing a dark blue shirt with lettering and light blue jeans. During the second incident, the suspect was last seen with a red/orange blanket.
Source: https://www.dailynews.com/2023/02/06/man-assaults-2-female-students-near-ucla-parking-structures/.
What we seem to have is a Rashomon effect, but involving journalists rather than those actually involved:
Rashomon is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller-crime film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori, and Takashi Shimura as various people who describe how a samurai was murdered in a forest, the plot and characters are based upon Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story "In a Grove", with the title and framing story being based on "Rashōmon", another short story by Akutagawa. Every element is largely identical, from the murdered samurai speaking through a Shinto psychic to the bandit in the forest, the monk, the assault of the wife and the dishonest retelling of the events in which everyone shows his or her ideal self by lying.
The film is known for a plot device that involves various characters providing subjective, alternative and contradictory versions of the same incident. Rashomon was the first Japanese film to receive a significant international reception; it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1951, was given an Academy Honorary Award at the 24th Academy Awards in 1952, and is considered one of the greatest films ever made. The Rashomon effect is named after the film.
The city of Los Angeles passed a parking occupancy tax in 1990 requiring those who pay parking fees at privately owned facilities to pay an additional 10% tax to the city. Before the state Supreme Court case – the City and County of San Francisco v. the Regents of the University of California – UCLA community members did not have to pay the parking tax on UCLA-owned property, according to a universitywide email sent Wednesday.*
The 10% tax will be applied to all university parking, including employee and student parking permits and daily, visitor and patient parking, according to the email. UCLA will not keep any of the tax money – which will go to the city of LA – and is looking into possible on-campus student exemptions...
Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2022/11/04/parking-at-ucla-to-be-taxed-in-light-of-state-supreme-court-decision.
===
https://ia601402.us.archive.org/25/items/big-ten/park%20tax.mp3
===
And to hear Taxman, click on the link below:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMdcE8jdz70.
===
*The email, which contains information on existing and upcoming parking charges, is at:
Apparently, they also had other observations about the student experience.
And, lucky you, it's available for viewing on YouTube. Just click on the link below:
===
*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2022/06/ucla-history-student-complaints-about.html.
A student-made film from 1949 complains about how hard it is to find parking at UCLA, even in the open fields of Westwood. One solution it notes is to have a small car that could squeeze into small spaces as below. The small car (below) appears to be a Crosley.
The Crosley was an experiment in subcompact car manufacturing in the U.S., mainly after World War II. Apparently, the public wasn't ready for subcompacts and the line was discontinued in 1952. A few years later, the VW Beetle was introduced and was a success, so Crosley was ahead of its time. The Crosley firm made radios and appliances before getting into the car business. Yours truly had an uncle who owned one.
By the way, the cars in the film arrived on local streets, even if coming from a distance. The freeway system in LA was in its infancy at the time.
The film briefly refers to the ice skating rink in Westwood where parking was allowed.*
You can see the film at:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38AYjpf8w28.
===
*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/12/ice-skating-in-westwood-1949.html.
