The University of California Board of Regents needs to improve its process of approving capital projects on its campuses, especially expensive and controversial ones such as the UCLA Luskin Conference and Guest Center.
Despite the regents’ approval, members of the community still have concerns about the $162 million project. Moreover, the time that the regents spent discussing and approving the center was not extensive enough.
Save Westwood Village, a neighborhood nonprofit organization, has filed suit with the Los Angeles County Superior Court to block plans to build the facility. The organization alleges UCLA officials did not objectively analyze alternatives to the proposal, according to court documents.
When such serious concerns still exist, the question arises: Why wasn’t the regents’ approval enough to convince community members?
Capital projects are approved by the regents on a case-by-case basis during bimonthly meetings.
The regents were expected to vote on the budget and finances for the conference center in late March, but withheld approval, citing concerns over the expenses involved.
Funding for the conference center was approved unanimously by the regents in July and the center’s designs were approved in September. This hardly seems like enough time to address concerns brought up in March.
The approval for the Luskin center was actually unusual in being so prolonged, said Kevin Reed, UCLA vice chancellor of legal affairs.
But we believe that bimonthly evaluation is not enough when dealing with projects of this magnitude.
Even when approving UCLA’s proposal, Regent George Kieffer expressed concern, saying he would be “really unhappy” if the center ended up looking “less than great.”
If concerns about the final product still existed, more time should have been spent to evaluate how the plan will be implemented.
There is a distance between the campus-level organizers and the regents that makes it difficult for the regents to figure out exactly what is going on, said Daniel Mitchell, a professor emeritus of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
The regents need to implement a mechanism for monitoring campus expansion that includes objective and independent review from expert sources before, during, and after projects are presented to the Regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings.
Simply meeting once every two months and discussing issues for an hour is not enough when reviewing projects such as this one.
As the trustees of the UC, it is the regents’ duty to exercise more diligence in its approval process.