While California State Assemblymember Kevin McCarty drew attention with calls for UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign after acknowledging her joining boards of for-profit education group DeVry as well as a textbook publisher, his counterpart in the California State Senate, Richard Pan, said on Saturday that, while he thinks it was “poor judgment,” he thinks Ms. Katehi is “an able chancellor” who, among other things, raised enrollment, increased research funding and raised the profile of UC Davis.
“The Chancellor showed poor judgment in accepting a board position with DeVry, and UC should reexamine its policy of permitting university chancellors to receive compensation as board members of for-profit corporations,” Senator Pan said. “However, her contributions to UC Davis and our region should be the primary consideration regarding her continued tenure as chancellor.”
“I take my responsibilities as Chancellor of UC Davis, and to the entire University of California, very seriously and sincerely regret having accepted service on boards that create appearances of conflict with my deep commitment to serve UC Davis and its students,” Ms. Katehi said in a statement released late Friday.
Ms. Katehi added, “I have resigned from the DeVry board and intend to donate all the stock proceeds I made from serving on the John Wiley and Sons board to a scholarship fund for UC Davis students. I look forward to continuing to serve the UC community.”
That is not good enough for Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, who represents parts of Sacramento and also West Sacramento.
On Friday at midday he issued a statement calling for UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi’s resignation and announcing legislative hearings.
“Recently, I met with UC Davis Chancellor Katehi regarding her recent resignation to the DeVry Education Group’s Board and other campus issues. After this meeting, her rationale for associating with DeVry has left me unsatisfied and contradicts her job to run a public university and educate our students. Further, a subsequent revelation of another sweetheart deal with text book publishers earned her an additional $420,000 from 2012-2014,” he said.
He continued, “This has driven my level of dissatisfaction even higher.”
As the Assemblymember points out, “Chancellor Katehi receives a taxpayer and tuition funded salary of $424,360. It is unseemly for the Chancellor to be moonlighting side deals to fatten her bank account, especially when it runs contrary to the interests of our students that are strapped with decades of student debt to pay the high costs of text books and other education expenses.”
“Therefore,” he said, “today I am calling for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi and am announcing legislative hearings to look into this matter across all three segments of higher education.”
Chairing the Assembly Higher Education Committee is Assemblymember Jose Medina. He also called for oversight hearings as the legislature considers UC funding.
“Chancellor Katehi’s paid positions with private, for-profit corporations raise important questions about UC’s conflict of interest and outside employment policies,” he said in a statement. “This information is particularly concerning in light of the positive strides that the state has made to increase funding for the system.”
What seems interesting is that, while Assemblymember McCarty and Senator Pan have both weighed in, the two legislators who represent the home base of the campus, Assemblymember Bill Dodd and Senator Lois Wolk, have been silent to date.
The question is whether Ms. Katehi can survive what the Davis Enterprise calls “another misstep.” As they note, and quite correctly, “For an undoubtedly intelligent and accomplished woman, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi sure seems to have a penchant for tone-deaf publicity blunders.”
My first reaction was, what was she thinking?
The Enterprise notes that Ms. Katehi was “elected to the Wiley board in September 2011, two months before the pepper-spraying of student demonstrators plunged UCD into chaos. Katehi’s actions in the build-up to the crisis seemed out of touch and ill-conceived. Was her mind elsewhere?”
The Enterprise wrote, “At the time, we urged patience with a relatively new administrator dealing with an unforeseen emergency. And we withheld criticism when she hired a communications director for $260,000 a year at a time when every dime the university spends is under scrutiny.”
But they say, “missteps are starting to pile up,” and these leave “an indelible blemish on the reputation of the University of California.”
They write, “UC is in a precarious state with the Legislature, featuring yearly battles over funding and enrollment. UCD, and the University of California system as a whole, cannot afford to have a leader whose ethical compass is consistently pointing in the wrong direction. Katehi needs to find her bearings, and soon.”
The chancellor has done a lot of good things. For all of the heat that she got with regard to the pepper-spray incident, the UC Davis police department was a problem for years. Bringing in Matt Carmichael, along with several systems of police oversight, will help.
The university has been starting to flex its muscle on research and technology transfer. A lot of the vision for university expansion has come from Linda Katehi.
At the same time, many in the Davis community are concerned that expansions in enrollment are leading to growth pressures that the university has been slow to address and largely unwilling to work with the community on.
Like everything, there is a balance of good and frustrating with the chancellor. How a public university chancellor making over $400,000 needs to find other sources of revenue is not likely to sit well with students burdened with higher tuition and increasingly onerous college loans.
The divide that the chancellor was trying to close just two weeks ago, being responsive to the concerns of African American students, has been re-opened with issues that appear to show greed and lack of basic common sense. Just how many lessons can be learned before there are serious consequences?
—David M. Greenwald reporting
I remember this controversy when Katehi was first hired at UCD:
https://theaggie.org/2009/08/03/evidence-leaves-katehi-out-of-admissions-scandal-students-demand-further-investigation/
My concerns about the performance of Ms Katehi have always centered around one issue. It seems to me that she lacks an appreciation for the word “public” in considering and promoting UCD as a public educational institution. When there have been opportunities for her to make a decision based on the provision of public education for the students of California vs the interests of fund raising to the detriment of those students, she has consistently opted for the latter. I do not believe that she does this because she is “evil” or acting on behalf of individuals who are “evil” but rather because her philosophy is such that she places material gain and aggrandizement, whether for herself or for the University, above the needs of the members of the public ( in this case California students) that it was intended to serve.
I believe that Ms. Katehi would probably have been a very good fit for a private educational institution. For UCD, not so much.
Yes, that is my impression of her as well.
You don’t keep landing in the limelight of scandal by accident.
McCarty’s statements are among the most scathing inditements I have have read: essentially, he met with her and was even less impressed after hearing what she had to say? Jesus!!!
I (and 116,000) others wanted this woman gone in 2011 ater the Pepper Spray incident. Instead of falling on her sword, she fought for her wallet. $400,000. And apparently that wasn’t enough money for her.
Then she turns to public funded PR to cover her mistakes. And she shows up with food at the Occupy Tents, striking a hollow note, and spends months with one of her student lapdogs walking the M.U. handing out cookies. PULEEEEZ!
Let me not mince words: this woman is greedy, lacks common-sense judgement, lacks humility, and lacks integrity.
The problem with the way society works is people bang the drum (what could be louder than 116,000 asking you to resign?) but if you survive the crisis with the help of your fellow six-figure public-through protectors, people are entertained by the next shiny object and lose interest in their former cause.
We never should have let this woman stay on as chancellor. This time, the drum beat must beat and beat and beat until she is gone.
And Napalitano should be forced out for being a fellow six-figure public-through enabler for even hinting at defending the actions of Katehi.
Despicable!
And now I’ll tell you how I really feel . . .
I actually like the Chancellor. I think she has done a lot of things well and really pushed UCD forward. Unfortunately, her downside is that she gives people like you the justification to say everything you have said here and do so with validity.
. . . because she has little integrity, thus the validity.
Morning, DP.
LOL
“Morning, DP.”
Morning, DB.
“McCarty’s statements are among the most scathing indictments I have have read: essentially, he met with her and was even less impressed after hearing what she had to say?”
McCarty’s words were surprisingly harsh, and certainly was indicative of something. None of us were in the room when Katehi was summoned into the Assemblyman’s Office and asked to explain her actions and reasoning. It seems reasonable to assume, however, that participation by university heads on private boards of directors was a prime topic of discussion.
At the conclusion of the meeting, McCarty did not make an immediate public comment, which is what often happens. Instead, McCarty paused. Then the “Wiley & Son bombshell” exploded–then McCarty exploded.
McCarty would have reacted as he did if Katehi had neglected to mention to him the other outside board participation (which many find far more egregious). The fact that McCarty specifically mentioned he had a meeting with Katehi suggests she never told McCarty about the Wiley & Son financial alliance. If that’s what happened, McCarty’s reaction is more understandable. If that’s what happened Katehi is in considerable professional peril.
Maybe Mr McCarty got some of Senator Yee’s notes about UC?
Besides treating California students as a second priority, she has tried to do what I have seen over the years of working there, “Empire Building”. She wants her name on a stadium, building, something.
The “Billion Dollar” fundraising she did a few years back got a lot of money rolling in, except she had to cheat every way possible to get the numbers up, including try to identify EVERY donation ever made for the last fifteen or twenty years and claim it was raised in her time frame.
What she really did was take every gift to the University, and consolidate it into one database, so it was under her purview. Departments were very isolated, by choice, and many DOs were approaching the same people for gifts, not knowing the others did it. This made the “Development Officers” the Car Salesmen of the University, often contacting people who specifically asked NOT to be contacted.
Giving that way lets the UCD administration take their half or more, just like they do with Grants and Research money.
Interesting insight… resonates with my (and my souse’s)experience (being approached to be a donor), but can offer no corroboration/confirmation…
Tone deaf for sure. To me having to have both items dug up rather than admitted tho I guess she gave a press notice when she accepted the De Vry position, is indicative of her common sense or integrity. It sounds like then the Wiley issue was dug up. And the lack of proper process through the UC President’s Office.
I have less of a problem with the De Vry position than I do the Willey connection because of the obvious conflict of interest related to the scam of over-priced text books that are purposely made obsolete every year for no good reasons other than greed.
However, I think no state or county or city employee should be paid more than the governor.
Katehi received 420K in income AND stock options from John Wiley & Sons and then states she will donate the stock proceeds to a scholarship fund. I guess that means she has decided to keep the income portion(?). I wonder how much of the 420K was income and how much of it was stock options.
When I was RN working for the state we were not even allowed to accept coffee cups or pens from drug reps. The same was true for MDs. I guess there are rules for the minions and other rules for the grand exaulted ones.
‘Ya gotta remember, UC believes, as to power, they are co-equal to the State of California… financially somewhat dependent (they do not need legislative/Governor approval to set tuition, etc.)… and the governing board of UC is NOT elected, except for those Regents who are elected reps. in another capacity…
Perhaps it is time to make all Regent positions (and/or Chancellors) elected positions… and Chancellors, etc., subject to recall…
If the Chancellor does stay, what she need to do focus on the campus and the needs of the students such as providing on-campus housing for the many students needing it, particularly with the increase in student population growth which, UCD has promised, yet not provide for many years. The sooner she shows that she cares enough about the on-campus student housing needs, the sooner she may make some progress towards demonstrating that she can get something accomplished that everyone wants.
This list of $1 Billion dollars towards projects like an art center, and a music center as well as an “international student center” now under construction on Russell not far from Anderson Road. ,Yet is only planned for a 500 bed expansion for a freshman dorm whose student will be pushed out in a year. Where do they live after that, especially since 1,000 more students will be added to being admitted to UCD now, but no plan as to where to house them. Pretty astonishing since UCD’s fall student population was 36,000. UCD admitted 60% more non-resident students then, but denied 11.2% California resident student applicants, andon top of this has no student apartmenst for the four years needed while these students are attending UCD.
Oh but yes, UCD is looking into “master leases” in Davis to reserve more of of our City rental housing. Tandem Properties owns over 1,900 apartments in town, so I wonder if they are in negotiations with UCD for lots of master leases?
So while UCD steps up its admissions primarily to non-resident students (for higher tuition) but provides no housing for them, that means less rental housing for our workforce. Meanwhile UCD drags its heels to see if the City will continue to “take the bait” to build the housing for the 13,000 additional students they want to add. The first obvious “bait” is Nishi Gateway, and not only will back up Richards into the downtown and south Davis as well as miles onto I-80 if it passes, but Davis taxpayers will get to pay for the water, waste water treatment and the City services for all of this City housing (650 units) for UCD into the future. Meanwhile, what a coincidence if UCD “master leases” are being negotiated with Tandem properties and that John Whitcombe is a major partner in Tandem Properties (with over 1,900 apartments in Davis) and Nishi Gateway. The City loses on ALL of this, financially as well as the traffic and (lack of) circulation impacts.
From: Jaroslaw Waszczuk [mailto:jjw1980@live.com]
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 3:07 PM
To: Assemblymember.Alejo@assembly.ca.gov; assemblymember.gonzales@assembly.ca.gov; assemblymember.mccarty@assembly.ca.gov
Cc: Assemblymember.Atkins@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Achadjian@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Allen@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Stone@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Bill.Berryhill@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Atkins@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Block@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Campos@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Blumenfield@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Cook@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Donnelly@assmbly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Fong@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Furutani@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Gaines@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Galgiani@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Gatto@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Halderman@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Hernandez@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Huffman@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Jones@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Lara@assembly.ca.gov; assemblymember.manuel.perez@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Miller@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Morrell@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Nielsen@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Olsen@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Pan@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Portantino@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Stone@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Swanson@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Torres@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Wagner@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Williams@assembly.ca.gov; Assemblymember.Yamada@assembly.ca.gov
Subject: California Assembly Members v. UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi – Open Letter to State of California Assembly Members Honorables Louis Alejo, Kevin McCarty, Lorena Gonzales and Jim Cooper.
Jaroslaw Waszczuk
2216 Katzakian Way
Lodi, CA 95242
Phone: 209.663.2977
Fax: 209-370-8281
E-Mail: jjw1980@live.com
March 24, 2016
Hon. Louis Alejo
State of California Assembly Member
District Office
275 Main Street ,Suite 104
Watsonville, CA 95076
Hon. Kevin McCarty
State of California Assembly Member
District Office
915 L Street, Suite 110
Sacramento, CA 95814
Hon. Lorena Gonzales
State of California Assembly Member
District Office:
1350 Front Street,Suite 6022
San Diego, CA 92101
Hon. Jim Cooper
State of California Assembly Member
District Office:
9250 Laguna Springs Drive, Suite 220
Elk Grove, CA 95758
RE: UC DAVIS CHANCELLOR LINDA KATEHI AND WIDESPREAD CORRUPTION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UC SYSTEM,
OPEN LETTER TO STATE OF CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY MEMBERS
HONORABLES LOUIS ALEJO, KEVIN MCCARTY, LORENA GONZALES AND JIM COOPER.
My name JAROSLAW WASZCZUK (pronounced Yaroslaw Vashchook). I have been a resident of California for 27 years and lived in the city of Lodi, in San Joaquin County, California, for 26 years.
I have lived and worked in four different states of the United States. I am 65 years old and have been married for 43 years. I have never violated any laws in this country or any of my employers’ policies, with the exception of a few traffic tickets. Both of my children have four-year college degrees and have both received honorary awards from two different presidents of the United States for superior achievement in school. My daughter Joanna was given an award by President Ronald Reagan, and my son George received an award from President Bill Clinton.
I hold a two-year college degree in power plant operations, electric power generation and management. Over the course of my employment in Poland and in three different states of the United States, I was trained and certified to maintain and operate power plants using different types of fuel, including coal fire, biomass, natural gas and diesel, as well as different types of turbines, like frame and jet engines and steam turbines. I also know about the plumbing trade and know how to repair computers. I speak and write three different languages. I was forced to leave Poland, my native country, by the Polish communist regime due to my involvement in the struggle and uprising against communism and Soviet domination in 1980–1981.
Recently, it came to my attention that five assemblymembers are taking action and demanding the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi for her decision to pad her $424,360 taxpayer-funded UC salary with outside activities, by serving on the boards of directors of both DeVry University and textbook publisher John Wiley and Sons.
As I understood from the press articles that I have read, Assemblymember Luis Alejo held a meeting with Chancellor Katehi and demanded her resignation in the letters he wrote to the Regents of the University of California and UC President Janet Napolitano.
Writing letters about Chancellor Katehi—who has become rotten through corruption—to the regents or UC President Janet Napolitano is equal to writing letters to yourself and feeling good about them. (Enclosed is a humorous picture regarding writing letters to UC administrators.)
The UC Regents did not hire Chancellor Katehi to fire her for a minor crime, since the UC Regents themselves committed similar fraud worth maybe $80,000,000 by selling electrical power illegally through contracts, in violation of federal and state tax laws for non-profit organizations.
The regents committed enormous multimillion-dollar fraud from 1999 to 2009, in collaboration with California Independent Power Operator (CAISO) and most likely with the support of former California Governor Gray Davis’s staff (see the enclosed copies of complaints with the IRS; exhibits enclosed on a flash drive, the complaint with the State Bar of California against 22 attorneys and the copy of the complaint with the State of California Commission on Judicial Performance against Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang- exhibits enclosed on a flash drive,).
The UC Regents’ fraud was covered up and disappeared from public view in March 2007 thanks to State of California Attorney General Bill Lockyer; Eric K. Behrens, former section leader of commercial litigation from the UC Office of the General Counsel; and former CAISO General Counsel Charles Robinson, who became general counsel for the University of California in January 2007, with a $400,000 annual salaries.
UC General Counsel Charles Robinson—who has become rotten by corruption, like UC Chancellor Linda Katehi and the entire UC administration—is padding his $400,000 taxpayer-funded UC salary with outside activities, in the same way as Linda Katehi.
In my 8-page inquiry letter to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein entitled “Request for Intervention and Independent Investigation” dated September 25, 2015 , I wrote: (Letter enclosed)
University of California General Counsel Charles Robinson was hired in January 2007. The new UC general counsel was recruited from the California Independent System Operator (ISO), where he was holding the positions of vice president and general counsel. CAISO oversees the operation of California’s bulk electric power system, transmission lines, and electricity market generated and transmitted by its member utilities
Charles Robinson is a law guru who deals with the federal Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in regard to qualified cogeneration facilities (QF) and power sale contracts with public utilities companies like the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).
From 1999 to 2003, the UC Davis Medical Center cogeneration facility, Central Plant, generated approximately 70-80 million dollars from power sales, according to UC Davis Associate Vice Chancellor Dr. Shelton Duressau’s statement, which he gave in an interview to Sacramento African American magazine Sac Cultural Hub. The interview was conducted by Donna Michelle Ramos on August 6, 2012, and was entitled “A Look Back.”
Besides his position as UC General Counsel, Mr. Charles Robinson, also serves on the Board of Directors at PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization (RTO) that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.
I was abruptly removed from the UC Davis Medical Center Plant in March 2007, just three months after Charles Robinson was hired as UC general counsel. In March 2007, I was served a Letter of Suspension and Reassignment with the threat of termination, which was closely akin to the indictment of war crimes committed by guards in Nazi concentration camps or something similar.
It was not the first inquiry I had sent to Senator Dianne Feinstein, but after the letter sent on September 25, 2015, I never received any response from her. Senator Diane Feinstein is the spouse of UC Regent Richard C. Blum, and she endorsed Janet Napolitano for UC president.
In the conclusion of my letter to Senator Feinstein, I wrote:
“As I asked you in my previous inquiry for help, I am repeating my request and am respectfully asking you again to intervene in this case with the UC Regents and UC President Janet Napolitano and ask them to give me my job back, which was guaranteed to me indefinitely by the Settlement–Agreement with the UC Regents, and to restore my and my spouse’s life to its normal level. This is what this letter is about, besides other issues. If you would like to see my annual employee performance reviews, I will be glad to provide them to you.
Furthermore, I believe it is also your moral obligation to help me and prevent any further oppression and violation of my civil and human rights by the Regents and their lawyers at the University of California, particularly as I am almost 65 years old, have had heart surgery and require nine different medications to survive day by day. You are a senator of the country that gave me political asylum and protection from oppression due to my struggle against communism. My life and my family’s prospects have been destroyed in the very country that supposedly promised to protect me from oppression. This has been done by the branch of government called the University of California with a former United States secretary of homeland security in charge. How much worse could the situation get?
I appreciate your time.”
The letter to Senator Diane Feinstein was CC’ed to the UC Regents and UC President Janet Napolitano, and was sent by e-mail, fax and certified mail. \
Also, the letter was provided to former California Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, who is very familiar with the Hobbs Act, which was enacted as a statute to combat racketeering in labor-management disputes. The statute is frequently used in connection with cases involving public corruption, commercial disputes and corruption directed at members of labor unions.
Besides the widespread corruption in the UC system I mentioned, I found AB 1288 and AB 1071 authored by Speaker Atkins quite interesting. In my next open letter, I would like contribute a few words about the environmental justice in communities, in relation to my employment with the University of California for 13 years and Dynegy Power Corporation for 9 years.
Speaker Atkins started her political career in 2005, when she was designated to serve as the mayor of San Diego after Councilmember Michael Zucchet, who was deputy mayor, resigned along with Councilmember Ralph Inzunza after they were convicted of wire fraud and Hobbs Act violations.
Speaker Atkins’s political career shows that she has great knowledge about what public corruption, fraud and racketeering are. Also, her early political career has some similarity to the early political career of Senator Dianne Feinstein, as she succeeded San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, who was assassinated together with Harvey Milk by Dan White. I also learned that George Moscone was supported by Feinstein’s present spouse Richard C. Blum, who is also today a regent of the University of California.
I don’t know whether UC General Counsel Charles Robinson’s fraudulent outside padding his taxpayer-funded UC salary through extra earnings, but I believe that people higher than Chancellor Linda Katehi were with the boards of directors of both DeVry University and textbook publisher John Wiley and Sons.
In response to the assemblymembers’ demand for Chancellor Linda Katehi’s resignation, UC President Janet Napolitano issued a statement thanking Katehi for her apology and praising her record. Napolitano’s statement clearly shows a gross disrespect for the law, UC policies and California legislators who are trying to raise their voices about the deep-rooted corruption in the UC System.
Janet Napolitano is guarding the hen house with hens that lay golden eggs for her worth $585,000 in annual salary plus $9,950 a month in rent and $8,916 a year for car expenses.
Writing letters to Janet Napolitano and the UC Regents is a waste of time. If the UC system were a normal place that did not tolerate corruption and wrongdoing, then upon disclosure of her unlawful behavior, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi would have become a subject of official investigation by the University of California Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services.
It should be UC Senior Vice President and Chief Compliance and Audit Officer Sheryl Vacca’s responsibility to investigate Chancellor Linda Katehi and provide her findings to California legislators. Ms. Vacca reports directly to the UC Regents, not to UC President Janet Napolitano.
However, how could Ms. Sheryl Vacca investigate Chancellor Katehi if UC General Counsel Charles Robinson—who also reports directly to the UC Regents—is in the same business as UC Davis’s chancellor? Charles Robinson is the most powerful official in the UC system. He knows everything about the rotten-by-corruption UC administrators and the whole UC system, and is basically untouchable.
How can Ms. Vacca—who I believe is a good person—investigate anything if her principal investigator, Judith Rosenberg, has her own law firm at the same time as she works for the university?
This is exactly the same as how the supervisor from my shop at UC Davis Medical Center, who worked part time but was paid in full, even though he was running his own HVAC business on company time and servicing HVAC equipment in the UC Davis Medical Center directors’ private residences.
Linda Katehi and Charles Robinson are not just two individuals in the UC system who privileged themselves to make extra money by misusing and abusing university time and resources. Misuse and abuse of the university positions and time for the personal gains are so notorious that, instead of writing worthless letters to Napolitano and the regents, assemblymembers should request that the State Auditor Office fully audit the UC system and root out the corruption and misuse of university resources and taxpayer money. I am one of the taxpayer whose life has been devastated by this UC corrupted system and administration for voicing my opinion about corruption and about violations of employees civil and Human Rights by ruthless university regime.
.
Also, I view the huge 62-acre plot at the south end of the UC Davis campus being provided for SunPower to build and operate its own solar plant and sell power to the UC Davis campus as being a bad idea at least, if not the wrong decision or fraud. Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi dedicated the new 16.3-megawatt SunPower solar power plant as reducing the university’s carbon footprint by 9 percent. Katehi said that reducing that footprint was not only the university’s responsibility, but also its mission. This solar plant sounds and looks nice but does not reduce the university’s carbon footprint at all, as Katehi stated in her misleading statement to the public.
Today, the UC Davis main campus has electrical energy demand of 116 MWh and demand for steam of 185,000 lb./hr. Producing 185,000 lb./hr. of steam requires natural gas to burn, and not 62 acres of solar panels. If UC decision makers would decide to build 50 MW cogeneration power with two LM 2500 gas turbines or with one LM 6000 on the two-acre (Central Plant), then it would have 50 MW of electricity instead of 16 MW, and the 185,000 lb./hr. of the needed steam would be generated by a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). This would save the university millions of dollars annually. Greenhouse gas emissions could be mitigated—or, in different words, carbon footprint could be reduced—by planting trees or other plants to absorb greenhouse gases on the remaining 60 acres. This would make the animals that were deprived of their habitat on these 62 acres very happy, instead of occupying the lot of land with solar panels which and a solar-panel-cleaning robot moving back and forth.
I came across a newspaper article posted in the Davis Enterprise on May 28, 2011. The article was entitled “CAMPUS MAINTENANCE BACKLOG IS IN THE BILLIONS.” The original article was written by Mihir Zaveri at Mazaver from the San Francisco Chronicle
In the mentioned “CAMPUS MAINTENANCE BACKLOG IS IN THE BILLIONS,” several of the disclosures or statements presented below are very interesting.
· “For years, a dark stairwell inside a UC Berkeley science building posed a potentially deadly threat as leaking water pooled next to the 12,000-volt transformers and switchgears.”
The UC Davis Medical Center 27 MW cogeneration power plant’s 12,000-volt High Voltage Switch Gear Room and Control Room with computers are equipped with a water sprinkler system and fire extinguisher instead of a dry CO2 fire protection system
“Lacking money to repair the leak, maintenance workers attempted to configure a temporary solution. They rigged the sheet metal to divert the leak so that it wouldn’t drip on the electrical equipment and blow out the power that runs laboratories where scientists are conducting some of the world’s most advanced biological research.
Yet that solution posed a new danger: that someone could be electrocuted if he or she stepped into the growing puddle.”
The University of California spent $80,000,000 to build the 27 MWh cogeneration power plant in the UC Davis Medical Center in 1998 but did not have a few thousand dollars more to install the dry CO2 fire protection system. If the water sprinkler pipe corroded or the roof leaked, the water would enter the 12,000-volt equipment in the High Voltage Room, and then it would cause an enormous explosion. With the presence of fire and a large quantity of natural gas and diesel, it could destroy the whole plant and kill the operating personnel and would destroy the nearby properties.
If the University of California built in 1998 It would most likely save the university $1,000,000,000 or (one billion) for the energy cost within 20 years, not to mention the unnecessary fraud related to the unlawful operation and power sale by the UCDMC 27 cogeneration power plant if the university in 1998 would build the 27 MW or larger cogeneration power plant in UC Davis Campus instead of UC Davis Medical Center. $1,000,000,000 could be used for repairs and modification of the aging equipment and buildings. $1,000,000,000 would more than needed for the Davis $400 million in deferred maintenance pointed in the article.
· “Last month, power to an animal hospital at UCD went out when an electrical panel malfunctioned, Tollefson said, and the campus did not have a backup generator for the building.
“We had to scramble on many, many fronts to keep from a pretty major loss,” said David Wilson, the director of the hospital.
The maintenance staff raced to get a new power generator, leaving the hospital, which provides emergency care for animals and other services, without power for four hours. The problem ended up costing much more than replacing the electrical panel would have cost initially, Tollefson said.”
Allen Tollefson, assistant vice chancellor for facilities management at UC Davis, expressed in the article his concerns about problems that I was reporting to others since 2000. Allen Tollefson was assigned as Skelly officer in my termination appeal and placed himself on the side of the oppressors against me by approving, in violation of the settlement agreement I signed with UC regents, the unlawful termination of my employment on December 7, 2012.
The UC Davis Medical Center 27 MW, which was commissioned in 1998 and only required 4–5 MWh in 1998, was equipped with five Caterpillars Emergency Diesel Generators (EDG) 2 MW each (total 10 MWh) . This means that the regents spent a few million dollars for three extra useless Emergency Generators, which could be used in the UC Davis Campus. This was irresponsible waste of millions of dollars. It was most likely an idea to run the EDGs and illegally sell an extra 6 MW of power. However, the test of the EDGs were not promising to sell power because the residents from the surrender cogeneration plant area complained of an excessive diesel fume smell and the diesel fumes were entering the plant control room and caused sickness
Sincerely,
Jaroslaw Waszczuk
CC. Speaker of the California Assembly Hon. Anthony Rendon
President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate Hon. Kevin de Leon
California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle