Illustration by Rachel Edelstein

California’s Republicans have finally released their own budget plan in response to the plan put forth by Gov. Jerry Brown. They say they have found a way to balance the state’s budget and protect education without tax extensions or increases. The only issue?

It’s short-sighted and socially irresponsible.

Despite claiming they would no longer “kick the can down the road,” the GOP proposal calls for billions of dollars in one-time solutions, and Republicans say they are not sure what next year’s deficit would look like if their plan were adopted.

Recent announcements that the state received $6.6 billion in unexpected revenue has bolstered claims by Republicans that tax extensions are unnecessary to balance the budget.

However, these claims do not look at the bigger picture.

California’s current deficit crisis did not happen overnight. The state cannot afford to make decisions without considering the long-term effects of its actions. If legislators focus solely on patching up the deficit for the time being, none of the state’s issues will be resolved, merely kicked “down the road.”

The Republican budget Band-Aid includes drawing $2.4 billion from voter-approved funds for early childhood development and mental health programs. Republicans say they would want voters to give feedback on that, but the redirection of funds amounts to $500 million more than Gov. Brown has suggested. The plan also calls for an unspecified $1.1 billion in cuts to state employment costs, and another $600 million in unspecified cuts to state operating expenses.

Reductions in funding to California’s social services will not significantly impact the state’s wealthiest residents, who possess the financial capital to obtain their own services through commercial alternatives. While the gravity of the state’s deficit ensures the people of California will have to sacrifice in order to weather the storm, cuts suggested by Republicans will disproportionately impact the poor and middle class, as well as the young and the sick.

Additionally, despite claiming education as a priority in need of protecting, the plan calls for suspension of $450 million in extra funds directed to low-performing schools aimed at improving their quality of education. As per usual, it seems legislators are placing the interests of the state’s biggest earners above equal educational access.

In an alarming element of the budget plan, Republicans also propose having the University of California take over healthcare services for state prisoners.

You may want to go back and read that last line one more time.

That’s right, Republicans in the state legislature are proposing that the crippled UC system be responsible for overseeing healthcare services for over 160,000 state prisoners.

If that sounds absurd, that’s because it is. The UC system is a dynamic research institution that was once a model for public education. It is an intellectual community with a culture of innovation and social activism. But UC president Mark Yudof is not a prison warden.

California’s prison system has drawn criticism from the public over elements of the prison guard’s contract renegotiated by Brown, including reductions in the criteria guards must meet in order to obtain a $130-a-month physical fitness bonus. Linking the operations of the UC with the prison system would create unforeseeable complications for the state’s struggling university. The UC is not equipped to handle such a responsibility, and in its current state, cannot afford the additional operational burden.

Rather than propose an alternative budget plan that ignores lessons begging to be learned from California’s current deficit crisis, Republicans should heed the call of many and allow voters to weigh in on the state budget.

A survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 56 percent of likely voters favor holding a special election granting the electorate the power to determine key elements of the state’s budget. Sixty-one percent of likely voters said they favored Brown’s approach of balancing the budget through a combination of taxes and spending cuts.

By blocking the referendum Brown called for, a referendum that would have allowed voters to decide whether or not to extend temporary taxes implemented in 2009, Republicans have directly ignored the desire of a majority of their constituents. By seeking to avoid tax extensions at all costs, Republicans have undermined the legitimacy of the state legislature. According to the Public Policy Institute’s survey, approval ratings for the legislature now hover at a measly 14 percent among likely voters. This figure contrasts with the 46 percent voter approval level enjoyed by Brown.

It is clear the people of California want a say in the budget overhaul that must take place in order to address the state’s issues. Republicans would do well to remember they serve the public, and allow voters to choose what course of action the state should take.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Too Little Too Late

Illustration by Louise Leong.

Updated 5/19/2011 at 1:25am

Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled his latest budget proposal on Monday. Lawmakers have until June 15 to approve a budget.

Brown’s May revision includes a $500 million cut to the UC ­— the same amount that was slated in his January budget.

“There is value to come out of predictability,” said UC Santa Cruz executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway in a budget conversation with students held on Wednesday on Brown’s effort to balance the state budget. “If this change brings some predictability, that would be an immense load off our minds.”

Brown proposed a budget of $88.8 billion. In addition, a surprise $6.6 billion in revenue is expected to come in over the next year. Increased revenue and already-enacted spending cuts have also reduced the projected size of the state deficit to $9.6 billion.

His new plan still calls for an extension of taxes — projected to raise $9.3 billion — which are set to expire in July, and couples this extension with a $2.6 billion cut in spending. The taxes themselves are sales taxes and vehicle license taxes that would get a five-year extension. Additionally, a four-year extension on personal income taxes would go into effect in 2012 if Brown’s proposal goes through.

For the tax extensions to pass, they must first be approved by the state legislature, and then passed by state voters.

An all-cuts budget may still occur, which Brown warns, will hit public education especially hard — his plan asserts cuts in state funding to the UC in this case would be doubled to $1 billion.

Based on the governor’s May revise, UCSC is planning to cope with the $500 million cut. Vice chancellor of planning and budget Peggy Delaney said during the conversation with Galloway and students that absorbing this magnitude will be “deep and devastating to every aspect of this institution.”

Galloway said coping with a $1 billion cut would be unsustainable for the university.

UC president Mark Yudof’s statement released Monday in response to Brown’s plan echoed this sentiment. He said an all-cuts budget would be “unconscionable — to the university, its students and families, and to the state that it has served for nearly a century and a half.”

Yudof and Galloway have acknowledged that reductions in state funding from an all-cuts budget would likely result in further tuition hikes.

Contrary to what some expected, Brown’s proposed budget is a mix of extended taxes and some cuts — not nearly as draconian as some feared. The current proposed budget adds $3 billion to what Brown originally proposed spending on education, though this is still $4 billion below 2007–2008 levels.

In an April Q&A, Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway commented on what they feel certain cuts would do to the UC system, and UCSC in particular.

“I really don’t believe that the campus can responsibly take cuts of that magnitude and still maintain the kind of student experience that you’ve come to expect. I think that the responses will have to be systemic — there will have to be a major effort to bring additional money into the system, and that’ll have to be done on a systemwide basis,” said Blumenthal of the possibility of the UC system suffering a $1 billion hit.

Galloway also made it clear that the administration was taking the possibility of massive cuts seriously.

“Just right now, we have policies in all the principal offices with what they think they’re going to cut,” Galloway said, “and what we’re doing right now is cross-reading those, so that no unit finds that a service upon which it depended is gone, or that they have been landed with expenses that they didn’t anticipate.”

A statement made by Brown on April 5 of this year, that “the university is an engine of wealth creation,” mirrors Blumenthal’s opinion of the role of the UC system, but Blumenthal has his doubts about the foresight of California legislators.

“I believe it’s true that for every dollar invested in UC, in the long run [it] repays that investment many times over,” he said. “It’s a great investment for the state of California. The reason they don’t do it is because they need the money now, and they’re not so worried about the future. I think it’s shortsighted.”

Governor Brown’s revised proposal can be read in its entirety at http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/

For UC President Mark Yudof’s full statement on the proposed budget, go to http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/25564

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at California Budget Proposed

Phone calls, emails and protests were the name of the game.

This was the reaction locally and nationwide when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed shutting down all 14 state parks in Santa Cruz County and upwards of 220 of the 278 existing state parks in California. Locals of Santa Cruz and those affected across the state mounted a massive campaign to save state parks and won. Instead of following through with his proposed plan, however, the former governor cut hours and maintenance at state parks to appease his public.

Fast-forward to 2011, where the victory of two years ago is overshadowed by the ever-growing deficit in California. Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget, released in January of this year, reflects his need to spend less in order to shore up the entire state of California’s economy. What this means for the California State Park System is a cut of $22 million over the next two years — an 18 percent cutback of the overall general fund for state parks. The system expects closures of some parks at least, a huge loss for the advocates of 2009.

This funding crisis was not made any easier when last year, Proposition 21, which would have attached an $18 fee to all license registrations to be used to balance the budget for California’s state parks, failed to pass in the November 2010 elections. That money would have replaced the entire state’s budget allocated to the state park system, which could have been used elsewhere in the governor’s proposed budget, according to Roy Stearns, deputy director of communications for California state parks.

With the proposed cut taken into account, the state park system will have lost a total of 37 percent of its general fund since the 2007–2008 fiscal year budget. This has amounted to a staggering loss for the single largest destination in California — the state park system — which has a total of 75 million visitors yearly, almost outdoing Disneyland’s location in California 5-1.

Natural Bridges State Beach is just one of the 278 state parks in California at risk of future budget cuts. To prepare, many state parks are looking for other sources of funding to keep them open. Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

Despite the advocacy efforts of organizations like Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks and the Santa Cruz State Park Foundation, gaps in funding have left the California and Santa Cruz State Park Systems with the difficult task of choosing what parks to keep open, cut availability to, or close completely. The California State Park System is not currently disclosing their estimates for how many state parks would close under the governor’s budget, but closures of any state parks, which are expected, will take a toll on local economies and preservation efforts.

Local non-profit Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks was at the forefront of the fight against Governor Schwarzenegger’s 2009 budget proposal. Executive director Bonny Hawley said now her organization tries to help fund local parks the state can no longer pay for.

“We’ve had to really try to fill in where we can,” Hawley said.

Even with help from Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks, which, according to their website, has provided $10 million in funding to Santa Cruz educational programs, visitors centers and exhibits over the past 30 years, some Santa Cruz state parks still have trouble staying open. Hawley’s office is located next door to the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park, which only remains open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They used to be open full-time.

Restrooms have also been partially closed in most of the local state parks and seasonal campgrounds remain closed for months longer than usual. Public accessibility has been cut dramatically, according to Hawley.

“The park used to be open a lot more to the public,” Hawley said.

Stearns said, Proposition 21 “would have fixed everything.”

Mision State Historic Park and Natural Bridges State Beach are two local examples of the many California state parks that are in danger of facing budget cuts. Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

In Santa Cruz County, the proposition passed overwhelmingly by a 68.4 percent to 31.6 percent vote, but it failed across the state by a 57.3 percent to 42.7 percent vote.

“My personal opinion … is that people didn’t want to pass a vehicle license fee,” Stearns said. “That doesn’t mean they didn’t like parks, it means they didn’t like a vehicle license fee.”

But according to Hawley, there was a deeper issue that affected the vote.

“I think it had a lot more to do with trust in government,” Hawley said. “I think there were people who really didn’t believe that the money would go to state parks, that somehow the governor or the legislature would find a way to put the money into the general fund for other purposes, even though it was very well drafted and that wouldn’t have happened. I think people were suspicious, and the tough economy didn’t help.”

With the looming threat of closures, UC Santa Cruz environmental studies lecturer Brian Dowd-Uribe said his class, Environmental Interpretation, would be critically affected. Almost half of his students currently intern at state parks.

“Without these internships it would be hard for my class to succeed,” Dowd-Uribe said in an email. “The internship allows students to immediately put into practice concepts explored in the class. There just wouldn’t be enough internships elsewhere to make up this gap.”

To decide which state parks are going to close due to the governor’s budget, a team of the California State Park System’s experienced supervisors and managers have put together a comprehensive plan that is currently being reviewed by

Gov. Brown.

According to Stearns, deputy director of communications for California state parks, this team of supervisors and managers traveled to Sacramento earlier this year and spent weeks refining the methodology behind the proposed budget cuts.

“You have to balance so that what you leave open still serves the greatest number in the public,” Stearns said. “Not an easy choice.”

Stearns said that “a significant number” of parks would close if the proposed budget is not adjusted, which he is skeptical about since tax extensions did not make it onto this June’s ballot.

The team of supervisors and managers looked at the cost savings they had to make, and ran the numbers on how much a park makes in revenue, or how much the system saves by closing it. Other factors the team considered were specific state parks’ significance, visitation, existing partnerships and infrastructure. The information regarding which parks will close cannot be disclosed until the plan is released to the public in mid-May.

Dave Keck, landscape architect and project manager for the Big Basin General Plan, a long-term plan that is currently being drafted for Big Basin State Park, said that with the budget cuts and the wounded state of the park system, his team is trying to look at how they can obtain other funding through partnerships. He said he wanted “methods that we can achieve objectives for keeping parks open and still accommodating visitors.”

On March 26, Keck helped facilitate a meeting in which members of the public were open to comment on several different plan proposals.

“[Funding] is always the first question,” Keck said. “When you throw out ideas and want people’s feedback, the first question is always, ‘Well, where is the state going to get the money to do all this?’”

Instead of looking to the state for funding, Keck said that a lot of the funding Big Basin receives comes from bonds, which have funded improvements and updates for the park, its headquarters and its visitor’s center. Hopefully, Keck said, future bond partnerships will help implement the current General Plan. Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) and Sempervirens Fund are two of the park’s current bond partners, which helped secure the territory of Little Basin acquired early this year.

What this means for Big Basin is their facilities have not been hit as hard as those that have difficulty securing funding through private bonds. Campers and rangers at Big Basin see little difference in the way the park has been run in the past.

Securing funding is exactly what the Big Basin General Plan does in effect, Keck said.

“[The Big Basin General Plan] is used as a tool to solicit funds, if anything, by others who have an interest in making the park better,” Keck said.

Natural Bridges State Beach is just one of the 278 state parks in California at risk of future budget cuts. To prepare, many state parks are looking for other sources of funding to keep them open. Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

Realistically, Keck said, funding from either the state or private bonds and partnerships may not ever be available, but “when and if” it is, the General Plan also provides a framework for where to apply that money.

“I’ve worked on plans 30 years ago that still have things in them that have never been implemented,” Keck said. “This is not a master plan for development. Think of it more as a 20-year plan. It projects that far ahead.”

Keck expects that the draft of the General Plan will be finished by the end of the year, and open for public comment. By this time next year, Keck projects the plan will go to the State Park Commission for approval.

The Big Basin General Plan’s current alternative combines infrastructure development with preservation in order to keep revenue coming into Big Basin State Park, but also preserve the old-growth forest, Keck said.

“We’re trying to make improvements where we can, and reinforce the protection and preservation of the more significant natural and cultural resources, and things like the wilderness experience,” Keck said.

But Keck said this doesn’t come without anxiety from the public, who are concerned about the impact generating more activity will have on certain state park areas.

Mammoth Redwoods fill the Santa Cruz mountains and are an integral part of many state parks. Among these are the Henry Cowell, Wilder Ranch, and Big Basin State Parks. Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

Development is a major threat to state parks in their current fund-deprived state, according to Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis).

It is the main reason why Sen.Wolk drafted SB580, a bill currently making its way through the Senate that would protect state parks from unwanted development.

Sen. Wolk said there is no clear, existing policy regarding development in and of California State Parks. SB580 is the “commonsense protection” that state parks need, according to the SB580 Fact Sheet, authored by Sen. Wolk and Sen. Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego).

Some of the major development threats in California include a proposed toll-road through San Onofre State Beach, a power-line through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and the building of a mega-dairy in Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park.

A similar Senate bill was passed in 2009 called SB679, also authored by Wolk, but was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger when it reached his desk. Supervisor Mark Stone of the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors said he hopes the reformed bill will pass this time.

The Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors, at the urging of supervisor Neal Coonerty, endorsed SB580 on April 5. Supervisor Stone of the fifth district, which includes Ben Lomond, Scotts Valley and parts of Boulder Creek, said endorsing the bill was a “no-brainer” for the board, and that the proposal moved straight to a vote with no discussion.

In a press release, supervisor Coonerty said, “SB580 ensures that our parks have a high bar for their protection … and these places belong to every resident of the state.”

SB580 is also sponsored by the California State Parks Foundation, and supported by organizations including the California League of Park Associations and the Central Coast Natural History Association.

Supervisor Stone said the concern is developers will prey on parks that have closed due to the budget cuts, and that generating revenue might become more important than preservation if the budget crisis gets worse.

Redwood at Big Basin State Park. Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

“What we’re concerned about is that notion may come up and there might be pressure to just sell [the parks] to get some revenue, or allow developers to get in there and do things that we would later regret,” Stone said. “It’s to avoid temptation. If we can’t come back to them when times are better, that will be a real tragedy.”

Stone said he thinks the bill will hold on to the “status-quo” of park and that “developing state parks, which are meant to be natural” would be something the state park system would regret, and expressly the type of thing the bill would safeguard against.

Andy Schiffrin, analyst for supervisor Coonerty, said in an email, “As California continues to develop, preserving some of our natural assets both for their environmental values as well as for the enjoyment of our citizens, is of critical importance.”

But for Schiffrin, funding of the state parks and whether some will remain open or be closed is not the reason that SB580 is important.

“Certainly money is an important issue,” Schiffrin said. “However, some projects would be proposed in state parks irrespective of the financial realities.”

Hawley of Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks said that SB580 would be advanced regardless of the budget.

“[Regarding funding], I think [the bill] would still be important because as populations increase and development pressures increase, it’s important that there is that kind of protection in place for state parks,” Hawley said.

Dowd-Uribe said he also hopes state parks are protected because of the learning opportunities that state parks provide to students.

“Literally hundreds of K–12 classes visit state parks over the course of the year in Santa Cruz County alone,” Dowd-Uribe said. “These visits are often … the only chance students get to directly learn about the environment. State parks play a key role in the environmental education of our youth. Park closures would end these critically important programs.”

Sunset at Natural Bridges State Park. Photo by Kyan Mazouf.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at California State Parks Face Dire Decisions

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

“Double tuition.”

This looming threat, though a speculative comment made by Gov. Jerry Brown in a speech last week, becomes more and more of a potential reality for UC students and Californians with each day that passes and an all-cuts budget remains the likely option for Brown to sign off on.

Brown just traveled to Riverside to rally Californians into pressuring four state legislature Republicans to allow tax extensions to be on a June ballot, and thus allow Californians to vote on the matter. If the extensions do not make it on the ballot, or if Californians do not vote for them, the extensions will expire and the UC will likely face a $1 billion cut to its operating budget.

Such a cut, Brown speculated, would mean that students in the UC may see a twofold rise in their tuition. Brown also mentioned campus closures as a potential way of coping, if the tax extensions are not enacted.

The behavior of the Republicans in the legislature is abhorrent. They are not doing their job, which is to let the people of California vote.

The fact that doubled tuition is even a possibility for the UC system is absurd. Such a move would have devastating impacts. It is understandable that cuts need to be made to every facet of the state — and as hard as it is to face, even to the UC system — but to make this kind of cut would be detrimental and extremely shortsighted. Cutting $1 billion from the UC would not be just a cut. It would be the elimination of the public institution.

For students in the UC system and families supporting their children in the system, this would not be an issue of needing to save more, work more or taking out more loans — it would force many students to drop out. If enacted, students in the UC system would be trapped into paying private school tuition, despite the fact that they enrolled at a public institution.

Brown’s statement that closing some campuses would be another possible solution is also shortsighted, for a number of reasons. Closing down any UC campus would make entrance into the UC system that much more difficult, flooding more students into state universities and community colleges — schools that are also receiving immense cuts. This would not be a solution to anything.­­­ It would be deflection, moving the problem to another part of the state’s budget.

Furthermore, any closure of a UC campus would mean thousands of employees without jobs. A closure to universities of that size would overwhelm the state with more unemployment.

Either move — closure of some UC campuses or doubling tuition — violates the objectives that this beautiful system was founded on: affordability, accessibility and the advancement of knowledge. While each of these facets of the UC have been jeopardized in the past few years as dramatic raises in student fees and tuition, increases in class sizes, and the reduction in number of teaching assistants have been implemented, these two moves would be a complete affront to the more than century-old system.

There has been a disillusionment with placing blame for the absurd climbs in student fees, for the forced furloughs, for the laying off of numerous employees, for the increased class sizes and the decreased accessibility, but blaming will not be a means for saving the UC. We all need to rally the state into providing more funding for higher education and to push the Republicans to let Californians vote. After all, it is our system.

We cannot keep blaming just Yudof, UCOP and the chancellors and looking within the UC for a solution — the fact remains that the state has all but stopped investing in higher education. The solution cannot be found in parading to chancellors’ and vice chancellors’ homes and blaming just the higher-ups in the UC system. The solution must be found in all of us: in our parents, our neighbors, our family friends, in Californians. The disillusionment must end. Everyone contributes to this system, and if we want to save it, we all must take part in that. We must join forces rather than splinter.

If this system is going to be saved, all Californians need to rekindle their sense of ownership and pride for the system that once had international prestige — the UC is all of ours, and Californians need to remember that.

Like one editor’s grandmother said to her husband when she first saw the library at UCSC, “This is ours, we support this, and can you believe that?”

That is the attitude that will save the UC.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at The Final Blow to the UC

Illustration by Bela Messex.

Assemblyman Bill Monning (D-Carmel) spoke and initiated an open discussion in the UC Santa Cruz Namaste Lounge last Thursday. Monning addressed how the state, the UC and students are all affected by the state budget crisis.

“I hope we can use this afternoon not just as a Q&A, but as a brainstorming session on how we might best continue to mobilize and work with students and the community, and not just in Santa Cruz, but in the state of California,” Monning said to the group at the beginning of the discussion.

Students, faculty, community members and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway engaged in a lengthy discussion after the Q&A session.

Although she felt Monning answered some questions indirectly, “like a politician,” Tiffany Loftin, chair of the Student Union Assembly (SUA), said the meeting was informative and a beneficial venue for addressing budgetary concerns. Loftin also serves as the national people of color student coalition chair of the United States Student Association.

“All the questions we wanted to ask we got to ask, and it increases shared governance when assembly members come to us,” Loftin said. “When we come to them we have 15 minutes, when he comes to us we have two hours.”

Questions from the audience ranged from the possible but unlikely advantage of Democrats voting for an all-cuts budget to the social and economic benefits of criminal sentence reform.

The topic most frequently brought up was a need to secure the four assembly votes that would make an overall two-thirds vote, and the governor’s signature, which would pass the proposed budget.

The extent of the state budget’s implementation of cuts to higher education hinges on the passing of tax extensions at the state level. Without the tax extensions in the proposed budget, the UC system faces an all-cuts budget that could lead to a $1 billion cut instead of the proposed $500 million.

Monning chided the actions of Republicans who will not vote to pass the budget nor present a budget of their own.

“The main problem is not the legislation or the regents,” said Jeremy Wolff, immediate past president of the College Democrats at UCSC. “It’s the system itself, and as long as the officials we elect face roadblocks like the two-thirds vote, we will continue seeing the degradation of the UC system.”

President of the SUA Amanda Buchanan played an integral role in organizing the talk. Buchanan prefaced Monning’s talk with a speech.

“Students in this room are here to work,” she said to the group. “We are here to collaborate with faculty, staff, unions, community members and administration to produce an outcome that meets the educational, social and cultural goals of the UC. Give us something to fight for. Give us the issue that makes our power come to life.”

Buchanan said students have already begun to feel the cuts in larger class sizes, longer wait lists, and discontinued majors, and the impacts will only go deeper. Wolff addressed this trend, saying that long-term lack of revenue could take the form of lowered student admission, increased fees, cut classes, online classes and a physical deterioration of the campus that will become apparent in about five years.

“As long as we continue to lose funding because the system doesn’t allow [us] to get new revenue sources we will see the UC system get weaker and more privatized, and less accessible to the majority of California,” Wolff said.

Monning spoke of the importance of student activists teaming up with community members and more disenfranchised populations to get the proposed budget, which includes the $500 million cut rather than an all-cut budget, passed.

“I think our secret weapon is the activism on the campuses, from community colleges to California State Universities to UC all around the state,” Monning said.

Loftin said that Monning’s presence at UCSC was empowering to student activists who often feel unheard by elected officials.

“He came to us and said ‘I see what you’re doing and it’s important,’” Loftin said. “I feel like there were a lot of students there and I felt very empowered by that, because it’s not every day that an assembly member comes to UCSC.”

Though Loftin observed a large student presence, she said there was a lack of students of color in attendance.

Students present at the talk voiced their desire for action. College Nine SUA representative Sasha Muce said it is time to demand that elected officials “step up.”

April 11–15 is a week of action for Higher Education, which some UCSC student organizations will be observing. A rally will be held on April 14 in front of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Los Angeles office. UCSC’s SUA will be organizing buses to transport students who wish to attend.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Local Politician Calls for Student Activism

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

UCSC Faces $31 Million Cut

The university will need to cut $19 million from the current 2011–2012 budget, executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway announced in an e-mail to the campus community on Feb. 7.

The University of California will face a $500 million budget cut under Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed budget. Galloway estimates UC Santa Cruz’s share will be about 6 percent, or
$31 million.

UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Davis will all contend with larger cuts. UCLA faces the largest shortfall, at $99 million, with UC Berkeley and UC Davis close behind at roughly $80 and $70 million, respectively.

Last year, the university made permanent cuts rather than relying on temporary funds, which decreased the actual shortfall UCSC will face to $19 million.

“The [$31 million] cut is roughly equivalent to cutting the entire division of physical sciences,” Galloway said.

Though no specific program cuts have been made, preliminary cuts have been assigned by division. The academic divisions face 6 percent cuts, and all other units have been asked to make 16 percent reductions.

These numbers may change, pending the outcome of Brown’s proposal to extend current personal income and sales taxes for five years. If the measure does not make it on the ballot or is not passed by voters, Galloway said, the UC will face larger cuts.

The proposed cuts are also dependent on tuition stability, said Peggy Delaney, UCSC’s vice chancellor for planning and budget.

“These numbers are based on an assumption that there won’t be a student fee increase,” she said.

Though there hasn’t been any formal discussion among the UC regents about further increasing tuition, which will increase 8 percent in the 2011–2012 school year. Higher student fees would lower the amount campuses would need to cut.

Students who want to take action can encourage their representatives to put Brown’s proposal on the ballot, Galloway said.

“The bottom line is, if the ballot measure doesn’t happen, we’re looking at the scale of about a $62 million [cut],” she said.

Galloway and Chancellor George Blumenthal will hold two town hall meetings in March to discuss the cuts with the campus community.

~~~~~~

UC EAP Students Evacuate Egypt

Amid protests in Egypt, UC Education Abroad Program (EAP) students at the American University of Cairo were evacuated on Feb. 1.

The group of 19 students, a team of archaeologists, faculty members and a parent of a student were moved to Barcelona, according to the University of California Newsroom website.

The decision was made to transport the group when protests regarding Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation from office became violent, potentially jeopardizing their safety.

As of Feb. 9, the students are transferring to different study abroad programs, including ones in Israel and Europe, or are resuming classes at their respective colleges.

Many of the students were from UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. UC Santa Cruz did not have any students in the Egypt program.

Students were evacuated according to established protocol for such instances. Similar measures have been used to ensure the safety of members of the UC community, such as following recent earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.

Alicia Ochsner, a junior at Tulane University, was supposed to be studying abroad in Egypt this semester.

Ochsner, not an EAP student, arrived on Jan. 1 but left a month later due to the travel advisory. Classes had been pushed back, but she never attended any.

She said the Egyptian students were excited and inspired by the political climate in Tunisia.

“They were like, ‘That’s great that they can do this. Let’s do it now,’” she said.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at This Week in News

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

Everyone knew it was coming.

When Gov. Jerry Brown took to the podium last Monday to outline his budget proposal for the state of California, there were already suspicions that the biggest cutbacks would be to social services and public education, two aspects of government that are never far from the chopping block in hard economic times.

Unfortunately, Brown only continued the “politics as usual” rhetoric by slashing state funding for the most vulnerable entities, taking $1.5 billion from California’s welfare-to-work program CalWORKs, $750 million from the Department of Developmental Services and $1.4 billion cumulatively from four-year universities and community colleges.

This breaks down to half a billion dollars in cuts to the UC and CSU schools and $400 million out of community colleges. It also means that for the first time ever, the UC will get less annual money from the state than it does from student tuition: $2.6 billion from the state versus $2.8 billion from tuition. The one segment of public education that Brown refused to take money from was K–12 education. But this doesn’t mean much in the long run if students don’t have affordable, well-rounded universities to turn to for a higher education once they graduate high school.

Yes, the state is in a terrible financial situation, but it’s hard for UC students to understand why they must face the likelihood of even higher tuition and fewer class options when their wallets and aspirations have been so heavily battered over the past few years.

There are alternative solutions that Brown and his political posse in Sacramento can explore for helping to trim California’s deficit without having to pilfer more money from our already strained public education system.

One such solution — increased or continued taxation — was mentioned by Brown in his budgetary address. He is hopeful that voters will approve the extension of taxes that are set to expire this year despite the fact that the public rejected proposed taxes in 2009.

“I think there is a significant number of people who have an open mind and it will be up to the legislature and myself … to make the case,” Brown said last Monday.

Although California residents may not take kindly to renewing taxes, it would be smart to consider a tax on the wealthier segments of the population. A proposal that the legislature could consider making to the state’s electorate is that of bringing back Proposition 87, which would have taxed oil producers in California 1.5 percent to 6 percent — depending on oil price per barrel — and established $4 billion towards the reduction of petroleum consumption if it had not been voted down in 2006 with a no vote of 54.7 percent. Perhaps instead of having the money go towards alternative energy research this time around, it could be used to try and bring California back in the black.

Another idea that should be taken into consideration is to cut from the top instead of at the bottom: in other words, to lower the salaries of the UC administrators who are making exorbitant amounts of money. Thirty UC Santa Cruz representatives make over $200,000 annually, a third of whom occupy various administrative positions within the university, according to the UC salary database last updated in June 2010.

In addition, at the University California Office of the President, which employs the top-ranking officials within the UC system, 74 workers earn at least $200,000 a year. This of course includes UC President Mark Yudof, who, while condemning Brown’s proposed cuts to the UC, collected a check of nearly $600,000 last year, a quarter of a million more than his 2008 salary.

UC administrators cannot condemn the half a billion dollar sucker-punch to their education system while simultaneously collecting paychecks that allow them to live more luxurious lifestyles than the state’s crop of public university students can afford. It is not only frivolous and hypocritical of them to make such excessive amounts of money in these rough economic times — and demand for more, in the cases of the 36 employees who have threatened to sue for bigger pensions. It’s also fiscally and morally irresponsible.

In taking office as the new governor of California, Brown has reiterated that we cannot afford to continue the cycle of irrational spending. But what he needs to realize is that what the once-golden state particularly cannot deal with right now is more tarnish and rust to our formerly top-notch public university system, which is undoubtedly what a $500 million setback would result in.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Running on Empty

The announcement came on Monday and it was difficult for those affected to hear. The newly elected governor proposed $12.5 billion of cuts in state spending, translating to $500 million in cuts to the University of California system alone. This corresponds with another $500 million cut from the state system as well.

It is a one-time cut, but the governor expects its effects to last for years, and is asking for an extension of taxes for five years to smooth restructuring in the state.

It is still unclear how the university system will apportion the cutbacks, but it is certain that they will affect higher education students and their studies. The funds given by the state will have been cut by nearly two thousand dollars per student, according to the University of California website for budget news.

American studies was recently suspended indefinitely from the UCSC curriculum. With the announcement of these further cuts, more majors and areas of study could be progressively eliminated.

Brown’s plan stands in glaring opposition to one of Schwarzenegger’s final budget bills signed into law October of 2010, endowing the UC system with nearly $3 billion in funding.

“For 10 years, this state has put together its budget with gimmicks and tricks and unrealistic expectations that have pushed this state deeper and deeper into debt,” Brown said in his speech Monday. “It’s time now to restore California to fiscal solvency and put us on the road to economic recovery and jobs.”

When it passed, Schwarzenegger’s budget bill still could not compensate for the cuts that had been made in previous years under his supervision, restoring only $200 million in permanent state funding to UCSC and $106 million in one-time federal stimulus funds to the UC system. Even just the year before, the UC system faced a $305 million one-time cut.

Further, with Brown’s budget proposal the university system in California would, for the first time in the history of that system, be given less support from the state than it would be given monetary support through student fees and UC general funds, according to the University of California website.

Higher education wasn’t the only institution targeted. Medi-Cal was cut by $1.6 billion, CalWORKs by $1.5 billion, developmental services by $750 million and In Home Support Services by $500 million.

Based on the supposition that Brown’s budget proposal will pass, UC Santa Cruz has planned to outline how it will deal with these cuts by March 1.

“As a campus, we have weathered deep cuts before, always managing to preserve the integrity of this beloved institution,” Chancellor George Blumenthal said in an e-mail to the UCSC community. “Our collective efforts are essential to our ability to make these reductions without eroding our accessibility, distinctiveness and excellence.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Governor Announces Budget Proposal for Next Year

Illustration by Matt Boblet.

Newly elected California governor Jerry Brown was inaugurated this week, ready to tackle the state’s $28 billion deficit — but is skeptical about how much he will be able to take on in the face of the statewide budget crisis.

This debt figure has already begun plaguing talks about reform as the state’s fiscal situation takes the front seat, leaving topics like higher education in the dust. But the governor will still try to address those problems according to his inaugural speech.

The governor’s plan for higher education was clear during campaign season, but whether he can keep his promises during one of the worst economic times in history remains to be seen.

“Recent state budgets have raised tuition drastically, reduced the number of new students … cut class sections so that students cannot get basic classes they need, and driven good professors to other states,” Brown said on his campaign website. “This situation calls for a major overhaul of many components of the postsecondary system.”

Brown plans to stage this overhaul by creating a new state “master plan,” meant to provide better college access and success for the long-term, he said. He also aims to introduce more online learning and “extended university programs.”

“Technology can increase educational productivity, expand access to higher learning, and reduce costs,” Brown said on his website.

UCSC will begin to implement online courses in March of this year, along with all of the other UCs in California.

Politics professor Daniel Wirls is skeptical of UCSC’s initiatives to create online courses.

“Such courses are best for a limited number of subjects taught in a fairly particular fashion, such as mathematics with machine-graded exams,” Wirls and in an e-mail. “So far the primary purpose seems to be revenue-generation rather than cutting costs or increasing affordability. Greater revenue does not necessarily translate into greater affordability for most students.”

Donna Blitzer, director of government relations, said in an e-mail that she is looking forward to working with Brown on the subject of higher education. She said he is well informed and qualified on the topic.

“We understand he is intending to confront a serious state budget challenge,” Blitzer said, “and we hope to work with him cooperatively on that in a way that preserves the important contributions the UC makes to California.”

Another way Brown hopes to help higher education in California’s current state of crisis is by stopping state transfer of monetary support from those institutions to pay for prisons. He called prison expansion “unnecessarily expensive” and said it would add “substantially to our state’s deficit.”

“We can do this without sacrificing public safety,” Brown said. “By relentlessly pursuing similar cost savings, we can channel needed funds to our higher education system.”

Brown has yet to speak as governor on the higher education issue, but it will not be what all Californians may hope for in the face of the state’s financial crisis, he said.

“The budget I present next week will be painful, but it will be an honest budget,” Brown said in his inaugural speech Monday. “Choices have to be made and difficult decisions taken. Our budget problem is dire, but after years of cutbacks, I am determined to enhance our public schools so that our citizens of the future have the skills, the zest and the character to keep California up among the best.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Governor Takes On Higher Education Struggles

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

California is struggling.

Financial woe and unemployment have overrun the state. In hopes of closing the gap in the state’s deficit, the governor included in his state budget numerous cuts to state-funded programs, including state-aided childcare.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed in his May Revision to eliminate $1.2 billion in subsidized childcare services and CalWORKs Stage 2 and 3, programs that had a $2.3 billion budget. The cuts will eliminate subsidized slots for approximately 174,000 children.

The logic of this particular cut — “Let’s fix the financial crisis by increasing unemployment rates” — is ludicrous.

There are 659,561 children under the age of six in California who come from single-parent families with a parent in the labor force. Nearly 200,000 children receive care through the CalWORKs program, the program that Schwarzenegger has significantly cut. This effectively leaves thousands of parents without childcare overnight and many more in the future.

Schwarzenegger made the cuts last month and the impacts were supposed to go into effect Nov. 1, giving parents only a month’s notice.

However, a lawsuit was filed at the end of October against the California Department of Education, successfully petitioning to postpone the date. Families receiving their care through the program will now have until Nov. 23 to figure out where to send their children or whether they can continue to be members of the work force.

On average, the annual cost to send an infant to full-time care at a center is $11,580. For a 4-year-old, it’s $8,234. The annual cost for full-time care is $7,937 for an infant in a family childcare home and $7,180 for a 4-year-old. Any way you slice it, child care is expensive — 42 percent of the median income for a single parent, female-headed family to be precise. This percentage goes up with each child requiring childcare.

Furthermore, not just families will be affected. The cuts are expected to impact 62,000 childcare providers as well. Fewer children will be enrolled in childcare, because their parents can no longer afford it.

To take aid away from childcare is, for many families, an unemployment sentence. With the burden of thousands of dollars in childcare costs suddenly entirely on their shoulders, families are placed in an unfair and irresolvable predicament: Do they choose to leave their jobs, or leave their children home alone? And where will these families turn to when they have no means of income? The state. It’s a vicious cycle.

Kudos, Schwarzenegger, you figured out a way to eliminate $1.2 billion from the budget. Too bad that number is completely negated by the hundreds of thousands of jobs you are potentially costing, and the years of fiscal plague you are tacking onto the state of California.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at State Makes Parents Bear the Cost of Childcare

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the California state budget Oct. 8., providing the UC system with $3 billion in funding.

The signing of the budget bill coincided with the 50th anniversary of the California Master Plan for Higher Education.

Schwarzenegger would not sign a state budget without the increased funds for higher education, he said at an April meeting in Sacramento with UC President Mark Yudof, CSU chancellor Charles Reed and California Community Colleges chancellor Jack Scott.

The governor upheld his promise when he approved the budget proposed by California legislators after multiple revisions. The budget includes approximately $3 billion for academic programs, student financial aid and health education and research. This is a $370.4 million increase over the 2009–10 budget.

“Although we have a long way to go to make up for the cuts of the past three years, it is encouraging to see lawmakers willing to reinvest in the university,” said UC Santa Cruz chancellor George Blumenthal in an e-mail to the campus community.

Before the budget was approved, California faced a budget gap of $19.3 billion.

“A budget gap is the difference between spending and revenues,” said Max Selfridge, a third-year College Ten economics and politics double major. “To close the gap, they have to keep cutting spending.”

The other option in closing the gap is to raise taxes, but in the 2010–11 May revision of the California state budget, Schwarzenegger pledged to increase funding for higher education without raising taxes.

Assistant professor of economics Justin Marion explained the aspects of the budget that will affect public education in California.

“Some of the things they would do would be to defer payouts in certain programs until the future fiscal year, so it looks like they’ve done that a couple times. Some of the funding for K–12 education actually in the current budget is going to be put on next year’s budget,” Marion said. “It’s obviously a good thing for UC to get the additional funding, but eventually the state revenues are going to have to come back for us to get something more permanent.”

The 2010 budget gap was $5 billion smaller than in 2008.

The 2010 Budget Act took effect after the proposed budget bill was signed into law by the governor. The act bridged the gap by cutting spending to the Department of Parks and Recreation, health and human services, child welfare services and community-based services, among other areas.

The daily lives of Santa Cruzans will be affected, as they will likely see cuts to public services.

“The Metro service is going to be devastated because public transportation is one of the first things to go,” said Ryan Coonerty, city councilman, UCSC professor and soon-to-be-mayor.

However, there is a plan underway in Santa Cruz’s Westside to stimulate business.

The Delaware Addition is a large space under development that will include 44 land parcels, each consisting of at least 9,000 square feet. Each of the parcels will include a prepared building pad, all service utilities, paved access streets and roads, improved parking lots, drainage facilities and common area amenities.

“The idea [of the Delaware Addition] is for people to live and work in the same space to grow business,” Coonerty said.

While taxes are not going up, student tuition is. In addition to last year’s midyear fee increase — at the November 2009 meeting, the UC regents approved a 2010-11 fee increase — as of fall 2010, student fee increases included $1,344 for resident undergraduates, $1,458 for non-resident undergraduates, $1,344 for resident graduate students and $1,398 for non-resident graduate students. At their Nov. 16-18 meeting this year the regents will consider a proposal for an additional 2011–12 fee increase.

Despite the increased funding over the last year, “permanent state support for UC remains 10 percent below the level provided in 2007-08, and since then UC’s enrollment of California residents has increased by 16,000 students,” said Patrick Lenz, UC vice president for budget in his official statement regarding the budget.

In November, the UC regents will meet at UC San Francisco Mission Bay to vote on the spending plan for the 2011–2012 year. The most important aspects they will consider are enrollment, UC Retirement Plan contributions, employee compensations, retiree health benefits and student fees.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at UC Receives $3 Billion from State for Next Year

One hundred empty chairs filled the board room of the regents meeting on Jan 20. Photo by Kathryn Power.

The UC Board of Regents, the 26-member governing body of the UC system, met yesterday to discuss issues of the newly proposed budget. The regents, who meet six times each year at different campuses, specifically addressed the state’s possible increase in higher education funding. Student presence was markedly low compared to the last regents’ meeting, but UCSC’s Student Union Assembly external vice chair has high hopes for attendance at a March 1 rally in Sacramento.

Budget Woes Continue, Despite Partial Funding Restoration

Despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent commitment to higher education, the University of California’s budget woes still lingered in discussions at the Jan. 20 Board of Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay. Regents and those in attendance questioned whether the promised funds would make a serious dent in their UC cash-strapped balance books.

Comparing the governor’s recent proposal to last year’s, student regent Jesse Bernal said, “I wouldn’t say that I’m optimistic, but I’m less disappointed than last year.”

On Jan. 8 the governor gave a surprising jolt to the UC in his proposed 2010-11 budget. The UC received a $224.5 million increase from last year, a restoration of $370 million from previous cuts and $51.3 million for enrollment growth. Last year, the State of California removed $813 million in funds for the UC.

Patrick Lenz, UC vice president of the budget, applauded the new focus on higher education in a presentation to the regents.

“We really welcome the investment in the state dedication to higher education,” Lenz said, while pointing out that higher education’s boost in funds was an anomaly in the governor’s prospective budget of “fairly Draconian proposals.”

The proposed increase in state funding, along with the recent fee increases, still leaves the University of California in a $237 million fiscal shortfall.

The regents expressed appreciation for the governor’s recognition of higher education, but skepticism of his policy recommendations.

“[This is] a budget you can’t believe in,” Regent Richard Blum said. “I don’t think half of this stuff is going to come true.”

UCSC’s Student Union Assembly (SUA) external vice chair (EVC) Victor Sanchez said in a speech to the Regents that the SUA will lobby to prioritize higher education in the state’s budget. He spelled out five issues they would push: a $1 billion increase for higher education in 2010-11 budget; support for Assembly Bill 656 (oil severance tax for oil companies); the maintenance of the core of the UC Master Plan; keeping Cal Grants intact; and supporting higher education by reducing prison spending.

He announced that the University of California Student Association (UCSA) calls for the month of March to be the “March for Higher Education,” and is planning to rally at the state capital in Sacramento to kick off the month.

“I ask that the board truly consider joining us in some way, shape or form March 1 as we begin to shine accountability toward Sacramento,” Sanchez said. “Collaboration is a must if we are to be successful.”

Student Presence Lacking, but Unions Make an Appearance

Student presence was stark at the regents’ meeting yesterday. Only two students were in the audience, both of whom were “whiteliners,” funded to attend the meeting through advocacy group the UC Student Association. Whiteliners are granted access to the separate seating area and the regents throughout the day. The 100-seat section for public observation sat vacant except for a couple of security guards throughout the day.

“It is disappointing … to go from the last meeting, where we were so represented, to this. It is depressing,” said Malerie Michael, third-year UC Irvine student and whiteliner. “We are not continuing our voice and are just present when something is going to directly affect us.”

No vote was held during the meeting, but Board of Regents chairman Russell Gould said student presence is always important.

“Students are a legitimate voice,” Gould said. “[Students] are there as a consumer, and we are seeing if our product is fulfilling your needs.”

The low student turnout could be attributed to the bad weather, but might also have to do with the inconvenient location and UCSF’s status as a university of only graduate students.

“It is very isolated and slightly underdeveloped, there are also no undergraduate students, and this makes rallying and protesting a lot harder to mobilize,” said Calvin Sung, chair of the UCSA Council on Student Fees, and another UCI white lighter.

This is significant because the majority of meetings are scheduled at UCSF.

A number of individuals from various unions, most predominantly American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), made their appearance during the the public comment section of the agenda in the morning.

They protested briefly and as they left, union members inflated balloons embossed with the message ‘Keep California’s promises and UC for everyone.’

The protesters left milk cartons with labels advertising “missing” regents, playing on the practice of placing missing children on the side of milk cartons. The missing regents were those who according to AFSCME do not adequately make themselves available for public discussion. They had to leave the milk cartons in the hallway for fear that the objects could be used as projectiles.

UC police officers had only positive things to say about the protesters.

“Today was peaceful, and they were cooperative,” said UCSF Police Sergeant Jim Lunnen. “They acted very professionally.”

While action at the meeting yesterday was minimal, SUA EVC Sanchez describes the trend of actions since the beginning of the year.

“If you look at September up to now, you see an escalation of mobilization,” Sanchez said.

Such actions have grabbed the regents’ attention.

“What has happened with recent student actions has made student activism part of the equation,” student regent Jesse Cheng said. “Regents are now saying ‘we recognize your force, and want to be part of it.’”

As of press time, the anticipated pinnacle of student action will be the march on the Capitol, to take place March 1. Across all 10 UC campuses, various student organizations are mobilizing to gather in protest of current trends and in hope of more funding for higher education.

Sanchez said he expects to see thousands in attendance, but is doubtful that the regents will make an appearance.

One regent is unsure of whether he will march with the students, but nevertheless asserts the necessity of such action.

“I don’t know,” said Gould, regarding whether he will be in attendance on March 1. “[Students and regents] have a lot of common ground, and we need to wake up Sacramento.”

Chancellor George Blumenthal echoes the sentiment and expresses his support of the planned march on the Capitol:

“I think it’s fantastic that students are going to Sacramento to make a case for funding for higher education.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at ‘A Budget You Can’t Believe In’

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed cuts to public services, including buses, park playgrounds and fire departments. An act on the November ballot looks to save these city services. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

Photo by Devika Agarwal.

Photo by Devika Agarwal.

And the cuts keep on coming.

Last Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to address a $20 billion state budget deficit with a new budget plan that will last through June 30 of next year. While it still needs approval from the California legislature, Schwarzenegger’s plan includes $8.5 billion in spending reductions, including cuts and borrowing from numerous local services statewide.

Santa Cruz City Councilmember Tony Madrigal is one of the many local officials promoting the “Local Taxpayers, Public Safety and Transportation Protection Act” — a statewide ballot initiative created to protect local interests. Without this initiative, some fear the state would be unable to repay the money it proposes to borrow from cities.

“The state legislature and government find themselves unable to find a balanced budget without taking funds from local cities,” Madrigal said. “[The act] will be one more weapon in our arsenal to defend ourselves.”

Sponsored by the League of California Cities, the California Transit Association and the California Alliance for Jobs, the act opposes the removal of funds from local governments, public safety and transportation.

“This measure will help cities,” Madrigal said. “It’s an opportunity for voters to defend the funding for local services.”

Deanna Sessums, the Monterey Bay regional public affairs manager for the League of California Cities, discussed several of the ideas in the governor’s recent budget plan.

“The governor is proposing to eliminate the sales tax on gas and replacing it with an excise tax,” Sessums said. “It’s an accounting gimmick. The sales tax is for the city, but by eliminating it and replacing it with an excise tax, he can use the money however he wants.”

Sessums also explained that since the majority of the Santa Cruz General Fund goes to the police, fire department, parks and libraries, these services will be affected first.

Local transit services should also expect cuts from funding if Schwarzenegger’s plan comes through.

Santa Cruz Route 20D bus driver Dennis Baldwin discussed the importance of local transit, and why it should not lose money from the state.

“We need an initiative … we can’t have them dipping into transportation, because fares don’t pay for buses,” he said.

UC Santa Cruz fourth-year Sulimon Sattari values the significance of adequate local transit funding.

“It’s important,” Sattari said. “It makes you more mobile and the better the transportation, the more mobile you are — the more things you can get done.”

Baldwin also commented on the importance of services like the fire department, police department and emergency dispatch.

“There’s no way to take from those departments and get the city to run properly,” Baldwin said. “We’ve finally got enough in those fields where [they] are taken care of, and now if we take from them, we’ll be at a shortage.”

In an effort to get the act on the November 2010 ballot, the League of California Cities is asking every city in the Monterey area to collect at least 100 signatures by April.

“It’s our goal to collect 10,000 signatures from the Monterey Bay region,” Madrigal said. “Legally, we need nearly 700,000 valid signatures, but 1.1 million signatures is our goal for the state.”

According to the website SaveLocalServices.com, this past year the state legislature “borrowed approximately $2 billion in property taxes from local governments, despite no clear path to repay these funds.”

The legislature additionally took $2 billion in local redevelopment funds, despite a recent Superior Court ruling that says these types of raids are unconstitutional.

“Redevelopment is really important for our economy,” Sessums said. “Students will be impacted because it means less jobs and less affordable housing.”

In light of the budget crisis’s recent direct influence on UC students, Madrigal stresses the importance of reducing these cuts as much as possible and making an effort to protect all of the services the city has to offer.

“Students at UCSC depend on the same local services that residents do,” Madrigal said. “I invite all of the students of UCSC, regardless of your party, to call or e-mail or text me to make arrangements to sign our petitions.”

~~~~~

Additional reporting by Jacob Pierce.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Proposed Act Aims to Protect City Services

Illustration by Joe Lai.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a constitutional amendment to cement spending on higher education at 10 percent of the state’s budget. Following this proposal, Schwarzenegger released his 2010-2011 budget, which increases funding for higher education and restores some one-time cuts to the University of California.

“We can no longer afford to cut higher education. … I will protect education funding in this budget,” Schwarzenegger said on Jan. 6 in his final State of the State address. “Never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education.”

The governor’s $82.9 billion budget proposal for the 2010-2011 fiscal year will eliminate the State of California’s $19.9 billion revenue shortfall with spending reductions and a reprioritization of existing spending.

If passed by a two-thirds vote in both houses of the state legislature, higher education will become one of the few budget items to receive an increase in funding compared to the previous year.

Overall, Schwarzenegger’s proposed constitutional ammendment would increase allocations to higher education by $224.5 million from last year. The University of California would receive $79 million of the $224.5 million increase.

In addition, the University of California would receive $51.3 million for a 2.5-percent projected enrollment growth, and a restoration of $370 million in previous one-time cuts from the last two years.

At the end of last year, the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) requested that $913 million be restored from previous cuts.

In response to Schwarzenegger’s proposed constitutional amendment, as well as his plan to increase education spending for the 2010-11 fiscal year, UC President Mark Yudof released a statement saying, “These restorations, in addition to the governor’s proposed constitutional amendment earlier this week, are clear evidence that the governor understands the vital role public higher education plays in California.”

The governor’s proposed amendment would cap the yearly contributions to California’s prison system from the state’s general fund at a maximum of 7 percent, while allocating a minimum of 10 percent to higher education.

Last year, California prisons received 11 percent of the state’s general fund while 7.5 percent went to higher education.

In order to make cuts to state prison funding manageable for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDC), which runs state prisons, the governor’s plan would allow them to contract with private corporations.

“If California’s prisons were privately run, it would save us billions of dollars a year,” Schwarzenegger said. “That’s billions of dollars that could go back into higher education, where it belongs and where it better serves our future.”

This aspect of the governor’s proposal has caused contention.

“Privatizing prisons is not a good way to go in preserving state morals and values,” said Victor Sanchez, a UC Santa Cruz student and president of the UC Student Association (UCSA), a UC-wide organization that advocates for UC students in state and federal government.

“I don’t think it’s the right answer,” Sanchez said. “[The state] will be looking at a lot of problems. Civil and human rights … may be interrupted, if not infringed upon.”

The trade of funding between prisons and universities must first be approved by a two-thirds vote of both the California Senate and the California Assembly in order to be placed on the ballot. A majority of California voters would then need to pass the initiative in the November 2010 election for the amendment to be added to the California Constitution. The two spending restrictions would take effect in the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

While reactions to details of Schwarzenegger’s proposal have been mixed, the governor’s new emphasis on higher education has drawn praise from many.

“I appreciate that the governor recognizes the irony that California spends more on prisons than on higher education,” said Assemblyman Bill Monning, who represents the city of Santa Cruz and its surrounding areas, in a statement released after the State of the State address. “However, his idea to pass a constitutional amendment is not necessary to achieve reprioritization of the budget.”

Sanchez said, “In principle, [UCSA] supports the increase in funds for higher education, but we have extreme reservations about where these funds are coming from.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at California Weighs Priorities

If passed, higher education, one of the few items in the plan that received an increase in funding compared to the previous year, will receive a $224.5 million increase from last year, in addition to a restoration of $370 million of last year’s cuts.  The $370 million of proposed restoration funds falls short of the $913 million that the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) requested.  To take effect, the budget plan would have to pass both houses of the legislature by a two-thirds vote.

Earlier this week, Schwarzenegger also proposed a new constitutional amendment to cement funding for higher education and prisons from the state’s general fund.

“We can no longer afford to cut higher education … I will protect education funding in this budget,” Schwarzenegger said in his final State of the State address to the California legislature on Wednesday, Jan. 6. “Never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education.”

In response to Schwarzenegger’s proposed constitutional amendment, as well as his plan to increase education spending for the fiscal year of 2010-11, UC President Mark Yudof said in a statement, “These restorations, in addition to the governor’s proposed constitutional amendment earlier this week, are clear evidence that the governor understands the vital role public higher education plays in California.”

The governor’s proposed amendment would cap the contributions to the California prison system from the state’s budget at a maximum of 7 percent while allocating a minimum of 10 percent of the general fund to higher education.

Last year, California prisons received 11 percent of the state’s general fund while 7.5 percent went to higher education.

To make these cuts, the governor proposed a plan to allow the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to contract with private corporations to make up for the lost funding.

“If California’s prisons were privately run, it would save us billions of dollars a year,” Schwarzenegger said. “That’s billions of dollars that could go back into higher education, where it belongs and where it better serves our future.”

The trade of funding between prisons and universities must first be approved by a two-thirds vote of both the California State Senate and the California State Assembly in order to be placed on the ballot. A majority of California voters would then need to pass the initiative in the November election for the amendment to be added to the California Constitution. If passed, the two spending limits would become effective in the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

In an interview with the New York Times, Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff Susan Kennedy said, “Those protests on the UC campuses were the tipping point. … Our university system is going to get the support it deserves.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Governor’s Budget Proposal Restores Funding for Higher Education

Illustration by Maggie McManus.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

“Citing decreased state revenue [the governor] has ordered the UC system to absorb an emergency budget decrease for the current fiscal year … The UC Regents will probably institute a student fee surcharge for the spring quarter.”

This passage, sounding like it could be drawn straight from today’s news stories, is from a City on a Hill Press article from 1981. That year the governor, Jerry Brown, instituted cuts to the University of California that led to a 28 percent student fee increase for the 1981-82 school year and 30 percent increase the next year.

State funding cuts to the UC are not a new phenomenon. The measure passed by the UC Regents two weeks ago to raise fees by 32.5 percent within the next year will mark the 15th time UC undergraduates have seen their cost of education increase by 10 percent from the previous year. During this same time, the state of California — the largest single contributor to the UC’s budget — has halved its contributions.

The Current Crisis

“The reason the UC’s are getting less state funding is because the state has less funding. It’s that simple,” said Steve Boilard, the director of higher education for the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the California Legislature’s nonpartisan policy analysts, in an email. “[This past year] the state has experienced a drop-off of tens of billions of dollars.”

In fact, the past three fiscal years in the state of California have been doleful at best. According to the California Department of Finance website, the state’s general fund has dropped from $102 billion in the 2007-2008 fiscal year to $84 billion for the current fiscal year.

“Revenue coming into the state treasury is highly volatile, resulting from the way our taxes and other income streams are structured,” Boilard said. “Almost all sectors of state government have experienced significant declines in state funding, including social services, health, resource protection.”

The State of California has four main funding priorities: K-12 education, prisons, Health and Human Services, and higher education. All four took hits in this current major economic crisis. According to the California Department of Finances, in the 2008-2009 fiscal year, K-12 education lost 20 percent of its funding from the previous year, while higher education lost 14 percent. In the same fiscal year, Health and Human Services and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation lost 13 percent and 17 percent of their funding, respectively.

But for the last 40 years, according to statistics on the Department of Finance website, it has been higher education that has seen continuous funding cuts, receiving a smaller and smaller percentage of overall spending from the state’s general fund.

“You can see that the state has other priorities,” said Patrick Lenz, the University of California’s Vice President for the Budget, “[and] the problem is in the state’s fiscal system.”

In 1976, higher education received 1.8 billion dollars — almost 18 percent of the $10.37 billion in the state of California’s general fund. In the 2009-10 school year, higher education will receive 12.5 percent of the $84.5 billion of the state general fund distributions. This is while the population of students in the UC system has nearly doubled since 1976, growing from 121,791 to 222,000 in 2009 according to the California Postsecondary Education Commission.

“Demand has never been greater for higher education,” Lenz said. “We [the University of California] have 14,000 more students than the state pays for — that costs an extra 155 million dollars.”

In contrast, the other three main state programs have seen increases in their proportion of the California budget since the late 1970s. K-12 education has seen the biggest increase, from 27 percent in 1976 to 41.5 percent in 2009. This can be partially attributed to Proposition 98, a ballot measure approved by California voters in 1988, which mandated a minimum amount of funding for K-12 schools and community colleges.

Funding for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has also received an increasing percentage of state funds, almost tripling from 3.4 percent in 1976 to 9.7 percent in 2009. This follows the rise in incarceration rates in California. California has the third largest prison system in the country, trailing only the federal government and the state of Texas. Prisons also have powerful advocates in Sacramento. In a 2004 article Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters called the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, a union representing 30,000 correctional officers in the state, the “state’s most powerful union.”

The State and the Student

Money from the state along with student fees and the UC general fund (nonresident tuition and operating costs from the state and federal government) are the core of the University of California’s budget, making up 28 percent or $2.5 billion of the UC’s $19 billion in funds.

This $2.5 billion pays the salaries and benefits for faculty and staff, funds the costs of equipment and utilities and extends financial aid to students in need. The remaining $16.5 billion are restricted funds, or funds that are given to the UC for grants and research and can only be used by certain institutions, departments or labs.

The State of California has contributed less and less to the UC’s overall budget: from 29.6 percent of its expenditures in 1967 to 16.6 percent in 2008. To make up for this decrease, the UC has relied more and more on student fees, which have increased 427 percent since 1965 when UCSC first opened. In this time, student fees have risen from $245 in 1965 (calculated to inflation it is $1,875 in 2008 dollars) to its current level of $8,020 a year.

Since 1967 the percentage of student fees and state expenditures in UC’s core funds have diverged dramatically. In 1967, money from the State of California’s general fund made up 89 percent of the UC’s unrestricted core funds, while student fees made up 6 percent. In 2008, state funds made up only 58 percent while student fees contributed 30 percent.

“Clearly,” Lenz said, “there is a disconnect with the state of California and its system of higher education.”

Solutions?

While UC appropriations from the state of California ebb and flow along with the revenues, neither California citizens nor university leaders see a way to fix this issue.

“The financing of higher education is broken,” said UC President Mark Yudof in an interview with UC student media organizations.

Yudof said he was hesitant to push the UC to ask for refinements in the state’s appropriation process.

“I don’t really think a public university can be the leader in actually proposing reforms,” Yudof said. “I don’t want to politicize us like that. But we stand ready to cooperate with whoever is seriously thinking about these issues … I guess the right role for the university is to play a facilitating role.”

But in an interview with the Sacramento Bee, Yudof cemented the UC reliance on state funding.

“I still think the primary responsibility [of funding] lies with the state of California,” Yudof said. “I have not given up on the state.”

In October, President Yudof issued a report calling for “an expanded federal role” in higher education and asked UC affiliates to “aggressively lobby our lawmakers in Sacramento to have … our funding restored.”

While university leaders are in a quagmire over reliance on the state and its lax funding, residents of California pointed their anger at state officials. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a state-based think-tank, released a poll earlier this month called “California and higher education” that surveyed Californian’s sentiments on higher education.

Those polled were critical of California’s leaders, with 61 percent disapproving of Governor Schwarzenegger’s handling of public higher education while 68 percent disapproved of the legislature’s job on the same issue.

Seventy percent characterized budget cuts to higher education as a “big problem,” while 62 percent were very concerned about increasing tuition and fees for students to deal with state budget cuts.

While 72 percent of those polled believed in the importance of California’s public higher education system to the “quality of life and economic vitality of the state over the next 20 years,” 56 percent of those polled were unwilling to pay higher taxes to make up for state budget cuts to higher education and 68 percent of those polled did not want to increase student fees for the same reason.

“[This poll] came out saying how important the University of California is to Californians,” UC Regent Chairman Russell Gould said. “[Sacramento must] fund it. Stand up for it and fund it!”

The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently estimated that the State of California is facing a $20.7 billion budget gap for the impending 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Next year, if faced with similar cuts from the state, Yudof did not fully rule out any further fee increases.

“I can’t make any categorical promises,” Yudof said, “but I would be very reluctant to do that.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at The Insolvent State of Higher Education

Illustration by Joe Lai.

Illustration by Joe Lai.

You’re on your way to the bookstore and you look up. After scanning the crowd, you make eye contact. You frantically try to think of an alternate route but it’s too late. They’ve spotted you.

“This is democracy in action,” said one anonymous petitioner in downtown Santa Cruz, trying to garner signatures to legalize marijuana.

The initiative process has given us low property taxes, full prisons and a ban on affirmative action. It’s expanded welfare for chickens and made marriage illegal for same sex couples. Lesser known though, is the fact that this familiar process has had a profound impact on the financial turmoil of our state’s budget as well as the shaky state of the education system.

Today a significant portion of California’s state budget is pre-determined because of voter-passed initiatives. When legislators have to make cuts because of falling revenue, they are forced to take funding from higher education and social services, some of the only parts of the budget that aren’t protected by voter passed initiatives.

For better or for worse, ballot initiatives, often referred to as “the fourth arm” of California government, have made the state what it is today by giving ordinary citizens the power to make law.

The idea that voters should be able to create their own laws, rather than rely on the legislature, wasn’t always a part of American politics. The idea of a direct democracy, rather than the representative democracy that exists at the federal level, didn’t arise until the Progressive movement of the early 1900s.

Daniel Wirls is chair of UCSC’s Politics Department and specializes in American politics.

“The idea was, if you could somehow take important decision-making and put it elsewhere, give it to some other group, you could break up these [political] machines’ power,” Wirls said. “Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing in the end is another question.”

Options are Limited

In order to pass an initiative, voters have to gather an amount of signatures equal to either five or eight percent of the voting population of the last governor’s election, depending on whether the proposal is a statute or a constitutional amendment.

Ryan Coonerty, a Santa Cruz city councilmember and lecturer in the politics department at UCSC, feels that the system created by initiatives is largely to blame for the state’s recent divestment in education and social programs.

“It’s not that people don’t support higher education,” says Coonerty, “In fact, I don’t think there’s a member of either party who just wants to cut opportunities for higher education, but they’re operating in a system where they’re not given any other choice.”

Assemblyman Bill Monning represents California’s 27th district, which includes Santa Cruz. Monning said that the lawmakers are left with few options in times of budgetary stress.

“Some of the fixed budget costs indeed support very important valuable programs [like K-12 and community college education], but the changing revenue of the state in the time of recession — where there’s no new revenue, there’s no cushion — can create very tough positions for the legislature,” Monning explained.

Prop 13 and the Initiative Revolution

Proposition 13, passed in 1978, was known as the beginning of the taxpayer’s revolt in the United States. The measure drastically limited property taxes in California and passed with almost 65 percent of the vote.

Limiting property taxes made it easier for Californians to stay in their homes, but it also drastically cut down the amount of money that was available for education spending, as property taxes are one of the main sources of funding for education in California. Prop 13 also imposed a rule that two-thirds supermajority of the legislature had to approve any tax increase, as well as the yearly budget, in order for it to pass.

Jessica Levinson is the director of political reform at the University of Southern California’s bipartisan Center for Governmental Studies, which analyzes government practices. She explained that requiring a supermajority in a state as large as California allows for a small group of lawmakers to squash any new tax, even when it might be favored by over 50 percent of Californians.

“There are only two other states that have the two-thirds requirement [to pass a tax] and those are Arkansas and Rhode Island — together Arkansas and Rhode Island have roughly the population of L.A. city,” she said. “I think that we really need to re-evaluate the wisdom of such a high threshold [for passing taxes] in a state that is as large and populous as California.”

In the 1980s Californians voted on 62 initiatives, as voters were attempting to secure funds for a wider array of programs and services. In 1988, Prop 98 guaranteed a portion of the budget to K-14 education, which includes K-12 education and two years of community college. In addition, several propositions passed to guarantee funding to state parks, roads and infrastructure, and after-school programs.

In 1994 Prop 184, or “the three strikes law,” was approved by the voters and increased prison populations. This contributed to California’s current practice of spending more than six times more money per prison inmate than per student in the public education system.

Coonerty believes that initiatives have protected valuable causes, but have also encumbered the state during difficult times, and excluded other important programs like education.

The Future of the Initiative in California

Most citizens of California are hyperaware of that fact that the state is in a budget crisis, and yet it is not always as apparent that initiatives have played a part in this crisis.

As a law maker, Assmeblyman Monning believes that the supermajority requirement of Prop 13, as well as other propositions, have contributed to the budget problems.

“I personally believe that the two-thirds threshold encumbers the state of California from effectively dealing with the massive challenges we face,” Monning said. “It would be in my opinion the most important reform to have budgets brought in on time, and to have the California budget reflect the will of the majority of Californian voters who’ve elected a majority in both houses.”

Despite evidence that voter-passed initiatives have gridlocked the California budget and government, the popularity of the initiative process has grown since 2006.

As of 2008, six in 10 Californians, regardless of party affiliation, trusted public policy decisions made by the voters to be better than those made by the legislature or the governor, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Although 24 states have the initiative process, few make it as easy for citizens to pass laws and amend the constitution as California does. Levinson, of the Center for Governmental Studies, thinks that California voters feel that the initiative process sets them apart from residents of other states.

“Californians have always seen ourselves as a progressive bellwether state and I think that the fact that we have the initiative process plays into our view of ourselves as an active citizenry,” Levinson said.

Sharon, a petitioner gathering signatures for a marijuana legalization initiative in downtown Santa Cruz who wished not to reveal her full name, agreed that the process is important for Californians.

“I think the petition process is important because it shows people that their vote is important. People are more informed,” she said.

Levinson feels that despite potential budget issues caused by the initiative process, it will remain important as tool for voters to pass laws that are unpopular with the legislature. It provides a pathway for laws that have an important purpose but that politicians would be unlikely to vote for out of self-protection, such as campaign finance and redistricting reforms.

“I think that the key to it is to make sure that the initiative serves the purposes it was intended to,” Levinson said.

The Ballot’s Role in Reform

Despite the fact that the initiative process is partly to blame for California’s budgetary woes, it is also the most likely way that state will be able to fix its problems.

Unless otherwise specified, legislators cannot overturn a voter-passed law. Therefore, aside from the initiative, the only other path to reform of the state’s gridlocked governance system would be a constitutional convention. This entails a complicated process.

As Levinson explained, the California constitution is longer than the United States constitution, and those of most countries today.

“It’s one of the largest governing documents that any government has right now,” said Levinson. “It’s been amended 512 times.”

Nevertheless, Levinson reflects the feelings of many Californians when she says that reform is needed.

“Whether we do it initiative by initiative, or whether we do it through a constitutional convention, I think that the larger comprehensive governmental reforms that the constitutional convention could address are very important for Californians for a whole to look at,” she said.

Among many initiative proposals currently circulating for the 2010 ballot is a law that would change the requirement to pass a tax from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 percent. There are also two initiatives that would begin the process of calling a constitutional convention.

Other propositions for 2010 are as diverse as a law to make divorce illegal in California, a proposition that would require schools to provide an opportunity for children to sing Christmas songs near the holidays, and three related to marijuana legalization and taxation.

Among multitudes of initiatives, Ryan Coonerty shares many people’s hope that reform will come soon.

“It just has to be fixed,” he said, “because right now the state is headed towards collapse and there’s actually very little our elected officials can do about it.”

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Taking the Initiative

Illustration by Joe Lai.

Cuts hurt. From the student who must take out more loans, increasing their burden of debt in future years, to the librarian promised a job at one of the greatest learning institutions in the world, only to be furloughed.

These cuts are part of a familiar cycle ­— the dysfunctional state government, constantly without money, slices more and more from its once great system of public higher education.

As much as students, parents and faculty moan and groan, complain and protest, the fact still remains that Californians have forgotten about higher education.

According to the California Postsecondary Education Commission, state contributions to the UC, which make up a sizable portion of its overall budget, have shrunk by almost half since 1967, yet enrollment has increased 178 percent. While money from the state has plummeted downward, student fees, which fill this sizable gap, have gone up about 449 percent in the past 40 years.

UC officials have offered no clear solution to the state’s divestment in higher education. “I don’t really think a public university can be the leader in actually proposing reforms,” UC President Mark Yudof said in an October interview with various student media organizations.

In Sacramento, there are two big interest groups: the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and California Teachers Association. One advocates for the ever-growing California Department of Corrections; the other for increased entitlements to K-12 education.

Both of these powerful interests have something we don’t: lobbyists in Sacramento who kick and scream to fight for their clients, infiltrate the capital and ensure a share of the state’s expenditures.

It might sound a little scary — lobbying is a pretty taboo word these days — but in a democracy, interest groups move opinions and, more importantly, they move money.

Lobbying is not just hiring a fat cat lawyer to wine and dine legislators. It’s talking to your state senator or assembly member and letting them know how student fees and budget cuts are eroding our education. Our state legislators control how much money the UC will receive, yet most of us could not name either of our district’s representatives.

Aside from organizing a letter writing campaign — sending a few cookie-cutter letters to the governor’s office that will passed to an acne-faced intern and answered with the template, ‘Thank you for getting involved,’ response — it comes down to organizing teacher and student groups and parading through the state capital in Sacramento, showing the people who vote to put money in prisons instead of labs or lecture halls just how many people they are affecting.

This summer, I saw hundreds of tea-baggers railing against the Obama-socialist-Hitler-Marxist big government takeover. No matter how much we laugh and poke fun at their absurd name, they were getting their message across — and not because they are some radical right-wing group or because they occupied a building, but because they got into legislators’ faces, forcing them to pay attention to their grievance.

What if students did that? Instead of overrunning buildings and walking out of classes, go “occupy” the state capital: flood the halls of the capitol building with students and faculty, impatient with the way legislators blow off higher education. There are more fed-up students, willing to go to Sacramento to explain how the state’s future is being sold out, than there are tea-baggers who can compare our president to Stalin.

Fixing the UCs’ and CSUs’ budgets, with a promise to return to the ideals of the 1960 Master Plan — the one that proposed education should be tuition-free because it is an investment in our future — could spark an Obama-like fervor in the youth. With a pledge to reinvigorate public higher education and to reinvest in the institutions that create future prosperity, any candidate, Republican or Democrat, could gain an army of student volunteers.

If university leaders, faculty and students don’t get involved and don’t demand a change from the state, then we will end up with more of the same: an endemic stalemate and partisanship in the legislature that decides that higher education is not worth its time, and another administration that cares more about stogies than students. If we are the most important part of California’s economy — its future leaders and discoverers — we must prove it.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Our Own Solutions

Rally attendees supporting the continual operation of Wilder Ranch have something to celebrate as national parks all over are anounced safe of closure. Photo by Isaac Miller.

Successful efforts to save our California State Parks serve as a powerful testament to the strength of of the dedicated collective

It started with a lot of numbers. The first was 80, eluding to the 80 percent of state parks that were facing extinction at the hands of Governor Schwarzengger’s budget plan just this past spring. Then it was 100, the whittled-down number of parks that the Governer’s plan actually set its sights on. But a surprise announcement from state officials on September 25 added a whole different number to the mix: zero, referring to the number of state parks actually in danger.

It was an unexpected decision, especially in a time when financial expectations are at an all time low. And in the case of People vs. Profit, parks and recreations are rarely, if ever, granted the kind of pardon that has Santa Cruzans throwing their hemp hats in the air.

But it all comes at a price. In an effort to keep the parks open, mandatory maintenance reduction and a cap on the purchasing of vehicles and equipment is saving the state a reported $14.2 million, in addition to the $2.1 million saved by reducing staff and days/hours of operation.

“The announcement today is a victory for the parks and for the people of California, but shows once again that we need to find a permanent funding plan for our parks,” said Dan Jacobson of Environment California, a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy organization. “The legislature and the Governor will have to work together in the 2010 legislative session to find a long term funding solution.”

But there is an undeniable willingness to compromise, as the supporters of the state parks are still able to call this a victory in the highest order. And during a crisis that has left the middleman extinct and the everyman up in arms, the sustaining of the parks is truly an inspiring victory — one that merits equal kudos for the state government for its willingness to heed the call of its citizens.

Moreover, our own community deserves praise for its active role in saving the state parks. The 17th district, namely our own precious Santa Cruz, was responsible for placing the highest number of phone calls urging for the reassessment of our state funding in order to allow for the state parks to stay afloat. But really, did we expect anything less from a community that is known for being as passionately loud as it is weird?

The survival of the state parks marks a widespread win for everyone. In a time of ever-changing policies, both cultural and political, there is a remarkable constant that lies within the power of the natural park. As we look to the future for much-needed change, there is an undeniable desire to keep somethings unaltered — consistency in a landscape that is becoming increasingly unfamiliar.

The thought that natural land might not be available to the public wassomething that could initially only be seen as a violation of unofficial natural laws. Forbidding citizens from entering untouched areas within their own community was a thought that carried more weight than we’re perhaps ready to bear. It becomes a much larger issue when placed into a broader context of what it means to no longer be able to access your own land, in a time when ‘our land’ is on the precipice of such drastic change.

But what this reassessment of state funding can really do is further our realization about what our priorities should be as we head into the future of what can only be described as a new California. Our land, quite simply, must be protected. It must be taken into account. It must be treated as a priority. We must have a balance of both constants and progress, to remember what needs changing, but also to remember what needs to be preserved. Our vocal refusal to allow the closing of our state parks is the only reason we are able to claim its victory. We must remain aware about our future decisions, and the inevitable effect they will have on the natural land we so often take for granted.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Parks and Re-creations

by Alex Zamora

Twenty masked individuals blockaded themselves within the Graduate Student Commons earlier today, following a rally at the base of campus.

Over-turned dumpsters, potted plants and students secured entry ways as a sizable crowd gathered in front of Joe’s Subs and at the building’s rear entrance. Individuals could be seen hauling chain-linked fencing to further block off access to the building.

Those standing in solidarity with the protesters, who themselves could not be reached for comment, said the protest was directed towards the recent budget allocations of the University of California Board of Regents, which resulted in thousands of lay-offs, mandatory furloughs and cuts to courses at the UC’s ten campuses.

“It’s not just about budget allocations,” third-year Emily Andersen said. “This is an entire critique of the way the university has been run.”

She and second-year Jackie Reinagel were among the dozen or so students at the rear entrance who committed to “defending the people inside” by positioning themselves in front of access points and, should the need arise, linking arms to prevent police from entering the building.

“[Budget issues] affect us all and I’m glad people here are getting involved in protest,” Reinagel said.

“I’m getting classes taught by T.A.’s instead of professors,” Andersen interjected. “I’m having sections cut. I hope people walk away from this and get more involved in politics instead of sitting around and complaining and take action themselves.”

Jim Burns, public relations officer for UC Santa Cruz, was about 100 yards from the protest, watching the scene amongst a group of university officials. He could not comment on the acts of the Commons’ occupants as he didn’t know enough details about who they were or what they were doing.

He did address some of the primary concerns the protesters and spectators had regarding the actions of the regents, emphasizing the need to recognize where the source of financial strain stemmed.

“This campus has sustained more than $50 million in budget reductions from the state of California,” he said. “That’s the reason why fees are increasing, that’s the reason there are lay-offs, that’s the reason there are furloughs, and that’s why access is being denied to a great public university.”

A student standing close to Joe’s Subs, who wished to remain anonymous, didn’t know too much about the issues at hand but said she wasn’t bothered by the occupation and protest.

“I think [the protest] is ridiculously important,” she said. “Even if the issue is small, people need to take action if they’re passionate about something. Organizing and protesting is important no matter what the issue.”

Protesters Andersen and Reinagel said the twenty occupants had been planning the take-over for weeks and are prepared to remain in the building indefinitely.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Protesters’ Take Over at UCSC