Mayoral campaign pledges?

A new report by various UCLA environmental research centers presents a variety of "green" options for the City of LA including energy, transit, etc.  Nothing unusual about that.  What is unusual is the connection of the report to the upcoming 2013 city mayoral campaign. Specifically, the report (on page 4) suggests that all mayoral candidates be asked whether they will pledge to undertake some specific actions:

A CALL TO ACTION

VISION2021 LA seeks answers to the following questions from each of Los Angeles’ 2013 mayoral and city council candidates.

*Do you share the VISION2021 LA goals for our City?  

*Will you incorporate the VISION2021 LA targets into your platform? 

*Will you pledge, if elected, to adopt by 2014 a sustainability plan for the City of Los Angeles that includes goals, targets, measurable indicators, implementation measures, and an implementation timeline, and requires annual reports?

*Will you pledge, if elected, to assign implementation of the sustainability initiative to an office reporting to the Mayor that has access to resources to direct and implement policy initiatives that promote sustainability?

*Will you pledge, if elected, to build the City’s capacity for data collection, analysis, and monitoring of sustainability issues?  

Note: It's not clear to yours truly that a UCLA report - it is on the "newsroom" website of the university - should be requesting political candidates to pledge in advance of being elected to undertake particular actions such as creating a new city office.  The Grover Norquist no-tax pledge at the state and federal levels is increasingly being criticized.  Generally, official endorsements of political positions - such as the Regents' recent endorsement of Prop 30 - have focused on matters of very direct concern to the university (such as UC funding and trigger cuts related to Prop 30).  Did anyone think through the pledge issue? 

In any case, you can find the report at:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/pagedoc/4/1/3/4/8/241348/Vision_2021_LA_final_Dec_2012_.pdf

UCLA MBA-JD Grad Tells a Story

There is a link below to a 20-minute documentary about this UCLA MBA-JD grad.  I won't say more about it other than it is on the syllabus for my winter California Policy course.  [Short ad precedes the documentary.  Caution: Language, subject matter. Fast connection needed.]

Neon Tommy Report on UC Fundraising

Neon Tommy is an online student news service of the USC Annenberg School.  The service features a news item dated Nov. 28 which reviews UC's "Onward" fundraising campaign.  That's right; USC is reviewing UC.  What is interesting about the piece is what isn't in it.  Back in the day - say, the 1950s or 1960s - any such story would deal with the impact of a public university competing with privates in fundraising.  Private universities would complain about the competition and say UC should be getting its funding from the state.  But despite the traditional USC-UCLA rivalry, no such view is mentioned in the story. The idea that UC should rely on the state no longer even occurs to anyone.

You can read the item at:
http://www.neontommy.com/news/2012/11/education-cuts-pushes-uc-onward

Dirks' Perks Irk

Much of the news media coverage of the appointment of the new UC-Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks involved the fact that his salary would be $50,000 more than that of his predecessor (albeit an increment paid by private funds).  

You can find the salary comparison used to justify the pay level to the Regents at:

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/nov12/c1.pdf

The governor, the lieutenant governor, and one regent was unhappy with the salary and the news media picked up the complaints.  See, for example:

http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_22074232/uc-berkeleys-new-chancellor-under-consideration-by-regents

http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2012/11/cost-cutting-wont-come-easy-to-uc/

Probably, however, if there was to be controversy, it might have been over an item in the footnotes (which apparently news media reporters and maybe regents don’t read).  Given all the concerns about unfunded liabilities in the retirement system – including the 100% unfunded retiree health plan – it is a bit surprising (no?) to find this item in the pay package in footnote M:

Item M. As an exception to policy, eligibility to participate in the University’s insured retiree health-care plans on an accelerated eligibility schedule (subject to changes in the law), receiving 50 percent of the maximum University contribution after completing five years of service. For each additional year of service completed, the percentage will be increased by ten percent, thereby making Mr. Dirks eligible for the maximum University contribution upon completing ten years of service.

We’ll eventually get the audio for the special regents meeting at which the pay package was approved.  Did the governor – with his concerns about the “wall of debt” faced by the state – get beyond the $50,000?  We’ll have to wait to hear. [UPDATE: I am told by someone who heard the meeting that there was no discussion/debate concerning the footnoted items.]

There is an interview with the incoming chancellor in the Daily Cal (the Berkeley student newspaper) – which includes an audio recording - at:

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/11/29/chancellor-designate-dirks-discusses-vision-for-uc-berkeley/

Excerpt:

It is unlikely that we’re going to turn the corner and go back to where the great Master Plan started and the kind of funding schemes that were envisioned as fundamental to the success of that Master Plan. It’s a different reality, and we know now that a lot of other things are possible that weren’t even thinkable in those days — from the use of digital technology, online education, to the role that private support will necessarily play in the great public universities. This is certainly something that is not happening only at the University of California … Unless I’m reading the tea leaves wrong, I think we’ll be very happy if we can maintain the level of state support, at least the level of percentage of revenue that we currently have…  (W)e have that same set of challenges in private universities too. We don’t take funding for things that we don’t accord great priority to, that we don’t actually give credence to as part of an academic planning process. So when we go out and engage in a campaign, we map opportunities for fundraising right onto a strategic academic plan that has already been formulated as something that is an organic outgrowth of a whole variety of constituents on campus who have been part of that process … There are all sorts of safeguards, all sorts of protocols that we’ve used in private universities and that are used here to ensure that undue influence from donors doesn’t in fact change the academic mission of the university.

Did I say that?

A look backwards: Lieutenant Governor (and ex officio Regent) Gavin Newsom was interviewed on KGO radio on Oct. 17 about Prop 30 and its relation to tuition.  In the course of the interview, he criticized Governor Brown for being late to get into the campaign for the proposition and, effectively, for not telling students the truth that their tuition would rise even if Prop 30 passed.

At the time, polling (which proved inaccurate) was indicating that Prop 30's chance of passage was marginal.  And Governor Brown had just made a campaign stop at UCLA to enlist student support.  As it turned out, Prop 30 passed by a comfortable 54% yes vote and tuition did not increase.

Words live on, however:

UCLA History: Royce in Rain (1929)

LAPL collection

In a photo appropriate for today's weather, Royce Hall appears in 1929 - still under construction according to the caption - just after a rainstorm.  

Sometimes things happen that aren't supposed to:

UCLA Forecasting

This 1966 photo from the LAPL collection shows a local effort at forest fire prevention by getting weather forecasts through a new "weather-fax" machine. The individual in the photo is identified as Bob Helfman, 28, a UCLA graduate in meteorology.

[Note: Did you think the word "fax" (for facsimile) was a more recent invention?]

There will be forecasting at UCLA this coming week using more modern technology.  The UCLA Anderson Forecast conference will be held on campus on Wednesday, December 5.

Info on that event is at:
http://www.uclaforecast.com/event/eventDisplay.asp?iEventID=69

Meanwhile, as far as the kind of forecast for the next few days that Mr. Helfman was doing, we pretty much know what the "campus climate" will be: