By Peter Byrne 
January 13, 2010 Victor Valle Would to see someone do a comparable analysis of the CSU.
I'm looking forward to your stories... For what it's worth, here are a few general things I'm curious about that may or may not fit into your investigation. 1) Where does the $53B figure come from? Is $53B UC's total assets? I thought UC's investments were closer to $14B. 2) What laws or UC policies outline what is expected of the Regents and its Investment Committee members? 3) How much of what UC is investing came from private donors? 4) Does the Investment Committee employ internal and/or external investment managers? How are those individuals compensated -- by salary or by a percentage of the funds they manage? I imagine (but don't know) that a lot of what UC invests came from private sources, but still... UC enjoys a tremendous amount of public trust and scrutiny of their practices is a good thing. If individuals are abusing that trust, we should know about it. Good luck with your investigation!
Kerry Tremain also need to be investigate for receiving sweetheart positions at UC. See my website: http://www.biggestcrime.com
http://changinguniversities.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-uc-hides-its-money.html
Thanks Mary Mad: I actually just posted this earlier today which has links about the UC system including the one above.
"The University of California - Tuition, Applications and an Uncertain Future."
The University of California is fighting for its life in a state with dwindling funds and dysfunctional politics. This is NOT the time for a story like this. Please do NOT kick UC in the face or in any way make it seem to the electorate to be less worth of state funding. If/when things are a little more stable I'd be interested in the story. Now is the absolute worst time to even contemplate it, and I plead with you to use your heads and find something else to write about.
Robert: I can understand your sentiment. I (David Cohn, the founder of Spot.Us) am an alumni of the U.C. system and believe greatly in public education.
But that is precisely why this investigation should be happening. Turning our head to potential abuse is worse than the abuse itself. A journalists role is to explore the truth - even if the truth hurts.
Sunlight is often the best disinfectant.
LittleSis.org here. Love the pitch! Maybe this is helpful:
http://littlesis.org/org/41451/University_of_California_Board_of_Regents/interlocks
You may be able to find some volunteers on LittleSis to further fill in the networks around the regents. Data entered into LittleSis can also be plugged into various network visualization software. Our site exists to aid this kind of research.
Making the UC "seem to the electorate to be less worthy of state funding" is a pretty misguided worry, since the many of the Regents themselves are intimately involved in or close to decisions about UC funding and finances. Holding the Regents accountable to the university community and the CA public is probably the only real way to keep the UC properly funded and managed in the future.
Thank you for exposing Dick Blum and Diane Feinstein's corruption. Your readers should know that, in addition to being a crook, Blum is a union buster who aggressively promotes outsourcing of low-paying UC jobs to even lower-paying subcontractors. He's a liar who reneges on his agreements with UC workers. He's a hypocrite who claims to be fighting global poverty while he promotes increased poverty in California. Dick and Diane belong in prison, and it's OK with me if they're in the same cell.
Since 2001, Blum has made in excess of $1.60 billion from construction deals with Station Casinos Inc of Las Vegas, the money men for an Indian casino trying to get built in the university town of Rohnert Park in Sonoma County. Despite widespread opposition from citizens and local governments and state elected officials, Feinstein does nothing to stop the project or help in any way, and has only intervened to help Station Casinos agenda. Her buddy, Babs Boxer, pushed through restoration of the tribe in question, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. Boxer grabbed the bill from its sponsor, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, added back in casino rights which the tribe had voluntarily given up, and pushed it through the Senate in a huge omnibus bill, even tho' BIA historians said, basically, that the tribe was phony.. When in 2003, the tribe announced plans to open the first casino in the San Francisco Bay Area, guess who owned the option on the 2,000 acre casino site? None other than Boxer's son, Doug and his partners, including Darius Anderson, long-time associate of Feinstein whom he considers to be his mentor, and Chris Lehane famous for handling Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. What a coincidence. Even tho' the tribe was forced to find another location due to public outcry, Doug Boxer made hundreds of thousands on the deal. Anderson still represents Station Casinos with his lobbying firm, Platinum Advisors.
interesting
Don't use the ole "union-busting" allegation to deflect attention from the real corruption, described in other comments here, and on http://www.biggestcrime.com. This is how the "union-busting" trick works: About six months after the heat is on for "union-busting," labor leaders call a news conference, where they declare that Richard Blum and Senator Dianne Feinstein are friends of Labor. All the while, the focus on the real corruption engaged in by Blum and Feinstein falls through the cracks.
