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Wednesday, February 11, 2004
# posted by Kevin @ 10:25 AM
Senator Leybovich's anti-Spring-Renovations petition has gathered 1600 signatures in the past couple of days-- remarkable for a word of mouth petition. (In contrast, the UCDivest from Israel petition has only 200 student signatures from Berkeley.)
Another good objection I've heard (from my better half) to the Spring plan is that it makes Upper Sproul a wasteland for this year's Graduating Class. I'm sure looking forward to a bulldozer in the background of my photo shoot.
It's also gathered some opposition from officials involved in the planning process, including one who made it a very public dispute. Presented below are the Cohen/Leybovich e-mails. In bold is what I think Mr. Cohen meant to say. From: Adam Cohen [mailto:apcohen@uclink.berkeley.edu]
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 5:17 PM
To: Natalie Wasserman; Academic Affairs Staff ;
academicsenators@uclink.berkeley.edu;
administrativereps@uclink.berkeley.edu; Allan Flores (The Bestest);
Allie Owens; Eva Khoo; Jessica Porter ; Jessica Weddle; Kim Bush ; Kyle Schien ; Mitch Liverant ; Pledge Class Right away I’ve made the decision to pick a fight with a Senator and tell everyone about it, including my Frat’s Pledge Class, rather then resolve matters quietly.
Subject: Re: Save UPPER SPROUL!!!
Misha -
I greatly appreciate your concern on this matter - but I am rather concerned that you did not consult any of the students working on the revitalization of Sproul or any of the campus committees or architects. You see, I live in a land where Appointees to positions on minor campus committees are more important then elected Senators. As opposed to the more common world where Appointees have a duty to inform the Legislative branch of important developments. You would’ve known I existed if you’d taken the trouble to examine page 14 of the Executive Report in early Fall where I was appointed along with seventeen other people.
I have discussed this project with the Campus Architects and Planners including James Horner and Kerry O'Banion. The timing of this project was done to minimize trouble to students and staff yet provided a nice finished project well advance of the CalSO student orientations resuming early in the summer where we will have new students, parents not to mention prospective donors. I will be arguing that CalSO students, who maybe see Sproul once or twice in their weekend, are more important then an entire student body. In my next e-mail I will realize how pathetic this argument is and pick up new ones.
I absolutely oppose such a petition as it is the wrong way to go about this. It is inappropriate to raise arms and shout about a project without knowing the details of why it was done or what it entails because I didn't tell anyone. This is a project that has to be done at some point and will be a disturbance, unfortunately, no matter when it is done. Of course, if I had bothered to inform the Senate in advance about this it wouldn’t’ve been presented as a fait accompli. However, how dare you get upset about my failure to inform Senators adequately.
Furthermore and MOST IMPORTANTLY, we are getting a staff person appointed to the Sproul Revitalization as well as going before ECPC for funding and design review. This will solve everything. This petition does not present a uniform front and puts the entire project at risk of failing if the administration thinks that students are not in support of such a project - which this petition provides the misleading illusion of. If 1500 students signing a petition in two days doesn’t constitute a misleading illusion, I don’t know what does. Obviously students do support this project because our exhaustive consultive process had plenty of public input. Ha! What I mean to say is that I, Adam Cohen, speak for all students. I urge all of you to reconsider this petition seriously and take a step back and think of the larger implications and consult your fellow student leaders like me before acting uniformed and trying to prevent a uniform front on something that not everyone agrees with. Please consult fellow leaders like me in the future to discuss the implications of these actions.
If you or anyone else has any questions about the project - please don't hesitate to ask – email me or email me your phone number and I'll be glad to fill in the details so that an informed decision can be made. Although I’m inviting Misha to respond, I’ll get really pissy when he does.
Sincerely,
Adam Cohen
Representative
Space Allocation and Capital Improvement Committee Here's Misha's response From: Misha Leybovich [mailto:mile@berkeley.edu]
To: apcohen@uclink.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: Save UPPER SPROUL!!!
Dear Adam,
Thank you for raising your concerns about this effort. I unfortunately must disagree with much of what you have to say. Firstly, anyone that reads what I wrote or the petition or the Senate resolution that I'm submitting can clearly see that I am- and I hope the student body will be- in support of renovation of Upper Sproul. It's a lovely project done with private donations and I can't wait to see it happen.
Take that back, I can wait. I can surely wait one month and a half to see this campus beautified. For all the safety concerns, I've not heard of one case of someone being seriously injured by tripping on the pavement and thus I consider this project not urgent in the sense that it must be started today. Summer would be a much more suitable time for the reasons I've previously listed: student activities, Cal Day, and most importantly academics will be compromised. You can't possibly deny that student life and traffic flow will not be impaired, that Cal Day will be as effective with a big hole in the ground, or that the noise of students forced out of Sproul in addition to ripping up a plaza's worth of pavement during the same weekdays when classes are held will not create distracting noise.
In fact the only reason you list for not waiting is to make it look nice for CalSO kids, parents, and donors. Now I was a CalSO counsellor 2 summers back and I am sure that it is much more important to not turn students off during Cal Day, when we're wooing them, than during CalSO, when they're already coming here. Also, donors visit all year round and>>I'd argue that the most concentrated donor visits will in fact fall on Cal Day which I'm trying to protect! I don't buy the argument that having construction there will impress people because they see the school is doing something construction-related. People need to see final products to appreciate them. I'm super excited about the new Stanley Hall but until it's done all that construction is just a pain in my neck. And how can we present a united student front in support of the plan as stands when, if the hundreds of listings on the petition that's been up for less than a day so far (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~misha/) indicate that there is a strong disapproval of the timing? We may disagree about the timing and its merits but to suggest that I stop this effort or the petition to try and show how I and many others feel is directly contrary to the spirit of free speech on this campus. I do look forward to talking with you in greater depth and hopefully convincing you that the pros of waiting until summer to begin this wonderful project vastly outweigh the cons!
Take care,
-Misha And Mr. Cohen's response to the response. Misha -
Let me tell you something else. I'm pissed. We are working on the renovation of the
entire student union complex and a proposal is about to go to ECPC. This petition and your action permanently jeopardizes this as it conflicts with the negotiations the executive branch is pursuing with the campus administration. I think the Administration is so shallow and stupid that they’ll abruptly cancel the planning process of an entire student union complex because a single ASUC Senator circulated a petition about a partially-related project. Then I’m going to e-mail everyone in the world about how I’m involved in private negotiations with the Administration. As a member of SACI and a student leader I insist that you stop now before you permanently disrupt the larger project and larger good. Don’t you understand that this is making me look bad in front of the Administration? As an appointed committee member it is imperative that you democratically elected Senators stop whipping up The Mob.
This timeline was specifically chosen because there are heavy duty renovations that must be undertaken - the only nine days where students will not be there is spring break. Finals run into summer sessions and we have orientations on the weekends. Only 1 of 5 Summer Sessions starts on the 24th of May; the next one doesn’t start until June 7th. So basically I'm pitting 1/5th of summer students vs. everyone in Spring. With any luck no one will look at the academic calendar and figure this out. Not to mention that they cannot guarantee with the schedules of the construction crews that it would be done before school started in the fall if the project was started in the summer. This is actually a pretty good argument. It’s too bad I’m only now bringing it up, instead of when this information would’ve done some good. If you would like to talk about this further please let me know. Otherwise stop your resolution and your petition now!!!!
Sincerely,
Adam Cohen
Space Allocations and Capital Improvement Committee
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