The UC Board of Regents has decided to cancel its meeting this week over fears for public safety, according to an announcement from the UC Office of the President.
The announcement, made by board Chair Sherry Lansing, board Vice Chair Bruce Varner and UC President Mark Yudof, was made Monday because UC law enforcement officials presented the board with “information indicating that rogue elements intent on violence and confrontation with UC public safety officers were planning to attach themselves to peaceful demonstrations expected to occur at the meeting.”
The meeting will be rescheduled “for another time and, possibly, an alternate venue,” according to the release.
Read the announcement below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 14, 2011
UC Office of the President
(510) 987-9200Announcement from UC Board of Regents leadership
The following announcement was released today (Monday, Nov. 14, 2011) by Sherry Lansing, chair of the University of California Board of Regents, Vice Chair Bruce Varner and President Mark G. Yudof:
Late last week University of California law enforcement officials came to us with concerns about credible intelligence they had collected in advance of the Board of Regents meeting, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday (Nov. 16 and 17) at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus.
From various sources they had received information indicating that rogue elements intent on violence and confrontation with UC public safety officers were planning to attach themselves to peaceful demonstrations expected to occur at the meeting.
They believe that, as a result, there is a real danger of significant violence and vandalism. They have advised us further that this violence could place at risk members of the public, students lawfully gathered to voice concerns over tuition levels and any other issues, the UCSF community, including patients, and public safety officers, UC staff and neighbors of UCSF Mission Bay.
They recommended to us, in the strongest of terms, that we cancel or postpone the meeting as scheduled.
After further consultation with these law enforcement officers, we have decided that, in fact, the most prudent course for us would be to postpone this meeting and reschedule it for another time and, possibly, an alternate venue. Failure to do so might constitute a reckless disregard of credible law enforcement intelligence. Ensuring public safety must be a top priority.
By rescheduling, it is our intent to allow the business of the University of California to go forward, but in a manner that will allow the public, including students, to express their views on issues related to the university without putting their personal safety in peril.
We will be announcing a new schedule for this meeting as soon as possible. We will not elaborate further on the law enforcement intelligence that prompted us to postpone, and we have asked our police officials to do the same.
Finally, we want to point out that the agenda for this meeting included updates from UC staff members on several initiatives that have been launched in an effort to offset state disinvestment in the university, providing alternate revenue streams beyond tuition and taxpayer support. This work will continue to go forward. Contrary to some public misperceptions, a tuition increase was never a part of the agenda for this meeting.
Jordan Bach-Lombardo is the university news editor.
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How convenient for the Regents that the concept of ‘rogue elements’ has been invented. It is just vague enough to serve as their umbrella excuse to avoid having to listen to the people’s statements during the public comment period, which I suspect is the real frightening thing to them; too much truth to bear.
“rogue elements intent on violence”
the kind of person who would pull out a firearm and point it in somebody’s face for no reason?
Who did that? UCPD at last November’s regent’s meeting, photo on linked page.
http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com/2010/11/uc-regents-meeting-day-2.html
No reason? Clearly you didn’t see the video of “student” protesters assaulting the cops and threatening their lives immediately before that photo was taken.
Coward.
cancelled the meeting?
candy ass cowards!
expect violation of CA open-meeting laws to follow shortly
Soooooo, then why don’t they not cancel the meeting and use the police to arrest people who are ACTUALLY being violent this time…
Wait, this is way too complicated for UCPD.
“credible intelligence”…more like: “bok” “bok” “bawww”. UC Regents are chicken-shit.
either say something intelligent or that has some substance, or don’t say anything at all.
Too subtle for you? Here, let. me. slow. things. down. for. your.small.mind: ….Regents = Chickens.
Anybody intelligent saw this coming days ago, no need to hide behind “credible intelligence”… they knew the risks. The Regents will have to postpone their ‘one-in-six meetings a year’ when they aren’t too busy working for their banks profiting off of student loans. It was a mistake to let people with a conflict of interest hijack the public schools…is that intelligent enough for you? Your comment wasn’t worth a penny. Don’t tell me UCPD has shills trolling dailycal.org and bullying people for their constitutional freedoms.
Come on, surely you can do better than that if you are going to pretend to be a Cal student? Seems like your name is wrong, and you are just another unintelligent and unintelligible Nobody.
An armchair critic with nothing intelligent to say…I’m shocked!
UC would have been the major hot topic for unprovoked violence toward their students, if it weren’t for the breaking story in PA.
Why Occupy Cal when you can Mockupy Cal?
http://ucmep.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/mockupy-cal/
useless cravan cowards! Sack them all!
Everything seems to happen for “public safety” these days…. this seems to be the go to reason to justify everything from beatings to meetings to cancellations to arrests …..
Yeah, I’m sure Sophie Scholl was excuted in the name of public safety!
That’s right, Cal’s administration and the Regents aren’t just generally decent people doing their best to to maintain the quality of the UC system without any substantive support from the legislature or taxpayers — they’re actually world-historically evil criminals who are genocidally gassing swathes of the population! At least, that’s the only reason I can think of for why you’re equating Occupy Cal with one of the most amazingly courageous and moving figures of the 20th century.
Were you groped, molested, robbed or assaulted while walking to class? If not, thank the public safety officers (UCPD) for keeping drunks, bums, and sexual predators away from the campus.
Unwavering support for the UCPD: yes, that’s the answer! It’s okay if they beat down a couple of Berkeley students as long as they’re ticketing cyclists and j-walkers. Just complete unwavering support for the UCPD no matter what. Well, until they do something that I don’t like but until then just give them complete, unwavering support!
Suppose UCPD does not ticket cyclists or jaywalkers. See how it feels to be mowed down by a speeding GSI who can’t afford decent brake pads on his second-hand Walmart bicycle. But hey, if you have your tent nearby you can just lie inside and dress your wounds.
The GSI would be able to afford a better bike if UCPD weren’t beating the fuck out of peaceful protesters fighting to restore funding to public education.
If UCPD were to stop harassing the bums and shady hooded thugs roaming around campus then the GSI’s nice bike would get stolen.
Have you seen the videos of the protest? Did you see thousands of “bums and shady hooded thugs” on Sproul Plaza being attacked by police? No. They were students.
And you think that people who are homeless and/or wear hoods should be harassed by police? Isn’t harassment a crime? Shouldn’t the police leave people alone, and if they catch them committing a crime, arrest them?
And if you think the market for stolen bikes is maintained by “bums” and “shady hooded” thugs, I sure hope you’re not a cop, because you’d be a waste of fucking resources.
That assumes that we’re all under constant threat of violence from our own community members. I often walk around in public places where there is no police presence–without being groped, assaulted, raped, etc. The two times that I have actually felt threatened by someone, it was passersby who came to my aid–not police. I think it’s important to question the role that law enforcement plays in society and in violence. When was the last time you were actually “saved” by a cop? When was the last time you were disciplined by a cop? I’ll bet it’s less of the former and more of the latter.
If you are truly a Cal student or live near the campus you would already know the answer. The areas around Telegraph and People’s Park are full of violent drug dealers, speakers for the dead, spare change retrievers, and sexual predators. West side is filled with petty criminals from Oakland and Richmond. However, they are mostly kept off campus by the vigilant UCPD. If you don’t believe cops serve any useful purpose then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if every student were allowed to carry guns to class to protect themselves from the previously mentioned denizens of Berkeley.
Yes, I am “truly” a Cal student–but not at Berkeley. However, I’ve spent substantial time in downtown Berkeley, working there doing research, organizing, and visiting my partner and friends. I never said police serve no “useful purpose,” but I do think it’s silly to assume violence as the a priori condition of society. I have not been attacked during my many visits to UCB because no one attacked me. Whether or not that was because of the threat of police violence should not be assumed. Also, why do these “petty criminals from Oakland and Richmond” wake up in the morning and take the BART into downtown Berkeley?
I believe you, but you are using yourself, a sample size of 1, to make assumptions about the rest of Berkeley. I don’t know how big/muscular/menacing you look. Society in general may be kind but Berkeley’s permissive attitudes toward minor criminals attracts more violent criminals to the city. Don’t take my word for it, read the police blotter on the many crimes happening in Berkeley.
And why do criminals come to Berkeley? Because college students are easy pickings compared to the battle-hardened residents of Oakland and Richmond.
That assumes that we’re all under constant threat of violence from our own community members.
Given the assaults, rapes, and vandalism that seem to be part and parcel of the Occupy Whatever movement, it would seem that Calipenguin has a point…
This oh so predictable cancellation of the Regents meeting is a victory for the 99% movement, and–finally– the beginning of the end for the current UC regents configuration.
The regents are not afraid of “rogue elements intent on violence and confrontation.” They’re afraid of the peoples’ mic.
We are the 99%!
Victory?
Because they’re moving the meeting?
Was that your whole goal?
Bronwen Rowlands
Financial Assistant
Contact information
Office: 7233 DwinelleEmail: [email protected]
Office phone: (510) 642-1110
Alternate phone: (510) 642-4218
Fax: (510) 643-2959
Mailing address:
7233 Dwinelle Hall #2520
Berkeley, CA 94720-2520
Why is a University employee trashing the University on the website of the University’s campus newspaper during work hours?
1) Criticizing the Regents for shutting down a public meeting due to widespread dissent is not exactly trashing the university. 2) As a citizen, of the United States, I would expect that you would encourage critique of our institutions so that we can think about how we can improve them. That’s the whole point of the 1st amendment. 3) Bronwen posted at 1:05 p.m. Ever heard of lunch?
Brownwen Rowlands is a long-time shit-stirrer who constantly trolls local media outlets shitting all over the very University whose tit he/she furiously sucks at for his/her wages.
He/she is a fucking hypocrite of the worst possible kind.
See my response to Vita McD above…
^ Moderators please delete
Why, because you don’t like the truth?
The fact of the matter is that Occupy Cal, like most of the campus demonstrations, is merely another chapter in the ongoing kabuki play that is Berkeley politics. The same administrators who are ostensibly the target of these demonstrations are ofteny the same ones whipping them up and providing organizational support. Get the students to protests, make the working taxpayers feel guilty, mau-mau the legislators into passing tax/funding increases, and that way the administrators can avoid the anal probe that should have been used to investigate UC system waste/fraud/abuse a long time ago.
Sorry, but some of us figured this stuff out decades ago – too bad you don’t have a clue…
Get your ass out in the real work, get a job, and pay taxes like the rest of us, THEN you can blather about being part of the 99%. Until then, you’re just a whiny activist who has probably sucked more out of the taxpayers than you have ever paid yourself…
If students can find a way to keep out the non-students, mentally ill, anarchists and adrenaline junkies then there would be no fear for public safety. However, that means the students would have to use the tactics of … *gasp* … the UC police.
They’d need that thing called ‘leadership’ which is what half of their rhetoric is against, they have group discussions with spirit fingers that waste more time than the outcome is worth. I’m behind their cause, not the execution. I am the 50% of the 99% that isn’t Occupying because the other 50% of the 99% is 50% useless.
First of all, there’s no reason why those groups, a priori, should not be permitted to attend a protest. Secondly, there is very, very little violence directed toward anyone in these protests, it is mostly directed toward the police (which implies that if the police weren’t restricting the protests, there would be almost no violence at all), and we have laws against property destruction. Strangely, on the day of the Oakland General Strike, there were NO police to be found anywhere when a few large corporations had some paint sprayed on them and some windows broken (somehow I think they’ll be able to find the money to clean that up, or their insurance will take care of that for them). It was only when people peacefully entered a vacant building that the police arrived.
Since the police are the targets of what little violence there is, it is only directed against them when they place unnecessary restriction on 1st Amendment protected political protest, this means that it is their presence and particular actions that generate these smatterings of violence. And with the little violence they face, we spend enormous amounts of public money to armor themselves very, very well. They are not in danger themselves. This means that the only remaining threat is some vandalism. And we already have laws against such things.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the Regents to cancel this meaning given that the only threat to attendees is from the police themselves, and perhaps some businesses will have to clean up some paint or replace a window. This minor issues seem vastly outweighed by necessity of having public meetings in which the public can express support or opposition to measures that will affect everyone in California.
I don’t think you’re aware of the motivations of the anarchists and young punks who are attracted to these public protests. They wear black and pretend to protest, but in reality wait until night to break windows, burn cars, loot shops, and hurt policemen. Since legitimate protest groups lack their own security force, and the police are busy figuring out who the violent offenders are, the Regents must worry about their own safety first.
First, you obviously do not personally know anyone with anarchist politics and are basing what you say only on media accounts and popular portrayals of anarchists.
Secondly, even accepting your flawed premises, how does a broken window threaten the safety of the Regents? It is just so unbelievably obvious that they are cancelling the meeting because of widespread public dissent, not their safety.
Secondly, even accepting your flawed premises, how does a broken window threaten the safety of the Regents?
Here’s a hint: windows rarely break themselves. They do, however, tend to break when struck with a weapon or projectile. Having lived in such garden spots as Oakland, southwest LA, NYC, and even in Northern Ireland, I have seen far more windows broken out with such weapons and/or projectiles (rocks, baseball bats, stray rounds) than to due spontaneous breakage. Something tells me you don’t think this stuff out…
Hmm, the only people “attaching” themselves to peaceful protesters that I know of have been the police.
Maybe you missed the violent anarchists and Black Bloc thugs who attached themselves to the Occupy Oakland crowd and destroyed shops and sprayed graffiti.
You’re going to be one miserable failure of a lawyer if you can’t figure out who broke the law first…
My first encounter with idiots from the Black Bloc was during the anti-war protests in S.F. in 2003. Hundreds of Thousands of people from all facets of society, peacefully and creatively protesting and marching through the city. At one point, the cowards with the masks (the Black Bloc) start handing out little flyers requesting that people join them on a break-off march several blocks ahead. I declined. What did the media focus on the next day? Was it the mass of humanity showing what democracy looks like? No, it was the Black Bloc cowards unleashing their pathetic brand of idiocy (vandalism, a form of violence). These punks are parasites who could not get any substantial following on their own so they ride in on the coat tails of of the hard work of others. I hope the Occupy movement can find the moral clarity to eschew any further contact with these people.
You bring up an interesting issue. The Tea Party people learned their lesson early on when the usual handful of bigots and kooks would show up at their events and try to hijack them to push their own particular racial or extremist agenda, as well as active left-of-center groups (i.e. Jason Levin’s “crash the tea party” people) who actively worked to disrupt their events and discredit them in the eyes of the media. The solution was that the TP types worked out their own internal self-policing arrangement, which included crowding around shit-stirrers with signs stating THIS PERSON DOES NOT REPRESENT US OR OUR MOVEMENT, and in some cases a “security detail” of a half a dozen big burly ex-military or blue-collar construction worker types who would politely but firmly advise such miscreants that their fun was over. In this case the partisan criticism from the media unintentionally worked in their favor, as it made them more conscious of the image they were presenting to the casual observer. OTOH, the OWS/Occupy Whatever was initially covered by a fawning sympathetic media that conveniently overlooked the vandals, professional troublemakers, hard-core Marxist agitator, and the usual collection of detritus that shows up when the situation looks like it will get out of control. I submit that this lack of scrutiny allowed a lot of unsavory types to associate themselves with the Occupy movement, which ultimately alienated them further in the eyes of the same general populace whom they counted on for moral support…
Let me guess, moving it to SoCal during winter break when students aren’t around?
The only rogue elements intent on violence are the police themselves. What are they afraid of? Linked arms?
Poor widdle weftist! Is you sad you won’t have no pwace to go pwotest?
Why don’t you go Occupy People’s Park, asshole.
love the amount of intelligence in this reply.
Disregard that, I’m a fucking moron.
Wow, look at Completely Serious’ cleverness as s/he pretends to be “Not as Serious!”
either say something intelligent or that has some substance, or don’t say anything at all.
Sorry, I responded to the wrong comment. I meant to say that to “On the real”.
Don’t be impersonating me. If you’re going to oppose someone else’s opinions, at least do it under a different name. Have the balls to have your own voice.
Oops, I did it again. God, I’m such a blonde!
Wow. Thanks again for impersonating me. Now you’ve proved my suspicions that you’re an idiot.
Why do you even feel compelled to submit such a stupid post?
Given that you have a track record of stupid posts here, Art32, why do you think you’re entitled to a monopoly?
Why are you such a troll? Go get a life. All you do is write personal attacks. And you’re the one to make jokes about stupid posts…
You’re the troll, Art32. Most of my posts are fairly detailed outlines of my position on a given topic, while the preponderance of yours are silly one-liners.
Seriously, I don’t think anyone would miss you if you just stopped posting here. Go find some other site to annoy people on.
Masked anarchists and idiots from the Black Bloc like to attach themselves to peaceful protests and then destroy property and attack police, hoping to provoke a violent reaction as police protect themselves and the local community.
OK, but you’re still a real sucker if you believe the crap spouted off by UC/UCPD.
they just want you to think that, don’t believe the hype this is clearly bullshit
So you think those buildings in Oakland just vandalized themselves during the Occupy protests last week or what?
They’re afraid of linked arms?
Why not march peacefully into police vans instead of linking arms to obstruct police work?
Why don’t you march into a ditch filled with shit, instead of wasting our time here?
Why don’t you go shove a rusty knife up your ass?
Because the police are obstructing our work of restoring funding to public education. Lots of police work is good and should not be obstructed. This is not one of those cases.
Oh, bullshit, the cops have NO control over the UC budget or state tuition spending. You picked a fight with the wrong people solely for the sake of picking a fight, and you’re too stupid to learn from your mistakes.
Bullshit! Our ignorant screaming matches and slurs against Police Officers are totally intelligent!!!
Look at how well all the previous protests about student fees have gone! Yes sir, those protests get student fees rolled back and really change things in Sacramento every time!
And just look at Occupy Oakland! Sure, they’ve cost the city over $2.4 million dollars and haven’t actually changed anything other than ruining local businesses, but they’re really fired up! We are so happy to be assisted by such a fine bunch of folks!