Another item to keep an eye on when the business plan for the UCLA hotel/conference center is released: Non-commercial use

A post on this blog yesterday noted that with the upcoming Regents meeting in late March, UCLA will soon have to release its business plan for the proposed hotel/conference center if it wants to get it on the agenda. So far, no plan has been released despite an official public records request for a copy from the UCLA Faculty Association.

The preliminary description of the proposal indicated that the hotel/conference center would take only non-commercial business.  An example could be a campus-sponsored research conference and participants in such events.  The non-commercial limitation allows for tax-exempt financing but limits the potential use of the hotel/conference center. It thus raises issues of whether resulting revenue can cover costs.  Commercial use that would violate federal tax code requirements could create problems for UCLA and, indeed, the entire UC system.  An interesting question, therefore, is what the business plan will define as a legitimate use of the facility.  UCLA is not going to default on its financial obligations so if revenue turns out to be below cost, one way or another the campus will have to make up the difference.

We continue to wait for the business plan but note that time is marching on:

Governor says he won’t back UC-Riverside medical school

The saga of efforts to create another UC med school continues.  Does every campus have to have one? 
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...While acknowledging he hasn’t looked at the school’s merits, (Governor) Brown said he is less inclined to fund it when the University of California regents haven’t committed any of the system’s state funding to the school.  The medical school has been in the works for years and originally was set to open this year. But so far, UCR officials have not been able to secure ongoing state funding.

UCR leaders are pushing ahead with private fundraising — the goal is $10 million a year for the next decade — and hope to open the school next year, but with only 50 students to start. To be viable long term, though, the school must have ongoing state support, UCR officials have said...

Full story at:

http://www.pe.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20120302-riverside-governor-says-he-wont-back-ucr-medical-school.ece

What the governor says doesn't carry much weight with some folks:

One Element to Keep Your Eye on When the Business Plan for the UCLA Hotel/Conference Center is Revealed: Parking

The next Regents meeting is scheduled for March 27-29.  If UCLA wants to get its hotel/conference center proposal on the agenda - which is typically published online by the Regents about two weeks before each meeting - it will soon have to unveil its business plan.  The UCLA Faculty Association has been requesting that plan for months, so far without results.

There are many elements of the new plan to consider.  One difference between the original plan, which would have been constructed on the Faculty Center site, is replacement parking.  The original site would have displaced some ground-level parking next to the Center.  The new location involves demolishing a multistory parking structure and more displaced spaces.  Campus policy is that new buildings are supposed to compensate the parking service for costs entailed in lost spaces and replacements for them.  So keep an eye on that element in the plan when it is revealed.

Meanwhile, time is marching on:

More Bad 405 Traffic News for UCLA Night Owls

…The northbound 405 will be closed from Getty Center Drive to Ventura Boulevard Saturday night as crews continue to work on rebuilding the Mulholland bridge over the freeway.

Some freeway ramps in the area could begin closing as early as 7 p.m. and some lanes could be blocked beginning at 10 p.m.

All northbound lanes will be closed at midnight, but the closures should be lifted by 5 a.m.  

The southbound lanes between the Ventura (101) Freeway and Getty Center Drive will be closed Monday and Tuesday nights. Southbound closures are also planned on the nights of March 12 and 13…

Full story at http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_20091117

Reasonably Popular

Inside Higher Ed today pointed me to the poll results from Pew showing the relative popularity of various institutions including colleges and universities.

The Inside Higher Ed story is at
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/03/02/60-americans-have-positive-views-colleges

The Pew results are at
http://www.people-press.org/2012/03/01/colleges-viewed-positively-but-conservatives-express-doubts/?src=prc-newsletter

So we're popular but maybe not very, very popular:

UCLA History: Angela Davis

A report in today’s LA Times on the Occupy protests at several CSU and UC campuses (including one at UCLA) reported the following:

…Turnout was small at UCLA. Occupy protesters set up eight or so tents on Wilson Plaza, which the demonstrators said they renamed after Angela Davis, the politically radical professor who taught at UCLA. The group said they intended to keep the tents up through the night, and campus authorities said they were undecided if that would be allowed…

Full story at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-student-protests-20120302,0,3924235.story

Why Angela Davis?  

A newscast from October 1969 deals with the Angela Davis controversy at UCLA of that era:  (The Angela Davis clip appears at around 1:20 minutes.)

DA Overreaching?

In 2008, a fire resulted from a chemical reaction and a student lab assistant was killed.  Some time later, a UCLA chemistry professor was indicted, along with the Regents, by the Los Angeles District Attorney.  UCLA asserts that there was no willful crime committed and is providing for the defense of the professor.

In that case, there was substantial outside publicity and investigations by workplace safety authorities.  The matter was widely reported in the Los Angeles Times and other sources.

You may have seen yesterday's Daily Bruin which carried a front page headline about the indictment by the DA of a former chair of the Poli Sci department on grounds that he had a conflict of interest when his wife was hired.  UCLA asserts that the hiring was legal and is again providing for the defense of the faculty member concerned.  Both faculty members, if convicted, could face prison time.  In the latter case, there was no external publicity - no headlines until the Bruin article.  So an interesting question is how such a matter would even come to the attention of the DA's office.  Since UCLA asserts that there was no crime, the university itself would not have gone to the DA.

Maybe a more interesting question is what is going in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office?

The Bruin article is at
http://www.dailybruin.com/index.php/article/2012/02/ucla_political_science_professor_michael_lofchie_charged_with_felony

Update: A Facebook page of students in support of the faculty member most recently targeted by the DA was set up recently:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/305329222862782/