[SDCPJ] 7/24/15 Union Tribune on "stay" of Che eviction

Friends,

 

Below please find the url and the copied text of the new UT article from Friday. And please see CCSN commentary after the article.

 

 

 

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/jul/24/ucsd-agrees-to-new-inspection-of-che-cafe/

 

UCSD agrees to new Che Café inspection

School will pay for licensed professionals to evaluate safety of campus cafe

 

By Gary Warth | 3:06 p.m. July 24, 2015

 

 

 

Cuddle Weather are among the many bands that have performed at the Che Cafe on the UCSD campus. The band includes singer Anthony Mayo, Brandon Michel, drummer Steven Waggner and bassist Brandon Taylor

 

 

LA JOLLA — UC San Diego has agreed to fund an inspection of the Che Café by licensed building professionals, the university announced Friday in a joint statement with the Che Café Collective.

 

The university had evicted the collective from the building last year over issues that included unpaid rent and safety concerns about the structure, which has served as a vegetarian cafe and music venue on campus for 35 years.

 

While one study of the building's condition found it in need of a sprinkler system and costly upgrades, members of the collective have argued that only maintenance is needed.

 

Supporters of the cafe had been occupying the building around the clock since an eviction notice was posted on the property March 24. The Sheriff's Department had a 180-day window to enforce the eviction.

 

With a potential standoff between occupiers and deputies brewing, UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and supporters of the cafe met for the first time last time week. After the second meeting concluded last Thursday, the university announced a 45-day stay to the eviction, meaning deputies would not remove people and change the locks on the building before Aug. 31.

 

More progress appears to have come from a meeting Thursday, with the university agreeing to a new inspection of the building.

 

"The weekly meetings aim first to identify and then address any necessary repairs and maintenance on the Che Café building so that it is safe and can continue to function and benefit the Che Café Collective, students and members of the community," read a statement from UCSD.

 

UCSD assistant communications manager Christine Clark said it was not clear when the inspection would happen.

 

Until the eviction, the cafe had operated under a 2006 lease that required the collective to have insurance, pay rent, maintain a nonprofit status and retain approval from the Associate Students and the Graduate Students Association.

 

gary.warth@utsandiego.com (760) 529-4939 Twitter: @UTSDschools#

 

 

 

CCSN COMMENTARY ABOUT THIS ARTICLE:

The article does not explain that UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and his Vice Chancellor Juan Gonzalez have agreed to pay for a licensed contractor and professional team CHOSEN BY THE CHE CAFE COLLECTIVE and working with the collective to produce a true assessment of the condition of the building and realistic estimates of repair and upgrade costs. The collective has known that prior administration-sponsored assessments (ISES report in 2010 and in-house UCSD report in 2015) were only looking at total 'like new" renovation and the cost estimates were therefore wildly expensive. So expensive as to scare off the student board (UCAB) that funds ordinary maintenance of the student fee-funded buildings, Che Cafe, Student Center and Price Center. UCAB balked in May 2014 at administration estimates of nearly a million dollars. The collective has also known for several months that administration claims of an urgent "safety" issue -- a lack of automatic fire sprinklers -- was a fabrication invented to convince the public and the student body that the building "must" be closed until "safe". When the administration failed to cite any law or code violation to show that any "safety" issue was urgent, alumni of the Che Cafe and others researched the question and found that the UC-wide Facilities Manual (which UCSD must follow) states plainly that the state Fire Code is the policy of the UC system. (The University is autonomous, per the state constitution, and on many subjects is free to adopt or not adopt state laws as UC policy.) The Fire Code expressly exempts all buildings of the type and age of the Che Cafe building from any requirement for retrofitting for automatic fire sprinklers.

 

The article also does not explain that Gonzalez is saying the administration WILL PAY for repairs. This is a 180 degree flip from the administration telling UCAB and the student governments (ASUCSD and GSA) for over a year now that if UCAB won't pay for the repairs then the money is nowhere else to be found and that THEREFORE the Che Cafe must close.

 

As they say, 'the devil is in the details', so please don't think this crisis is over yet. We still need to see the administration RESTORE the 10-year lease they terminated on July 13, 2014 and we still need to see the administration ask the court to set aside the eviction ruling.

 

Meanwhile, the collective's appeal of that eviction ruling is slowly making its way through the system toward an appellate court ruling which, if Che Cafe wins, would reinstate the lease and would force the administration to follow the dispute resolution procedures spelled out in the lease, regarding all questions of rent owed (or not), repairs and costs and who will pay, etc.

 

This new interest that Chancellor Khosla has found in coming to a more cooperative solution would probably not have been possible without the support of thousands of students, faculty, campus staff unions, alumni, musicians and music lovers, many community organizations -- including the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council (representing more than 100 local unions) and, most importantly, the brave and resolute students who attended lawyer-taught "know your rights" trainings and who set about to OCCUPY and guard the Che Cafe against the Sheriff's deputies coming to change the locks and finalize the eviction. The 24/7 sit-in, since March 24, is ready at any moment to set off a Rapid Response Team alert to over 200 volunteers who are pledged to show up, day or night, to protest if the Sheriffs arrive at the Cafe. The Chancellor, and also the UC President and the UC Regents, know that any attempt to carry out the eviction will result in TV cameras and cell phone cameras instantly on the site, and a huge protest that would grow as the hours passed. That sort of media spectacle, which would go "viral" on the internet, would greatly fan the flames of the nascent Artists Boycott of UCSD and the Alumni Boycott of UCSD Donations. The Chancellor is wisely choosing to instruct his subordinate administrative staff, including Vice Chancellor Gonzalez, to stop pouring gasoline on the fire.

 

Your continued support is needed. Please check the Che Cafe blog and Facebook pages for updates at http://thechecafe.blogspot.com/ and at https://www.facebook.com/che.cafe.collective/timeline?ref=page_internal 

 

Che Cafe Forever,
Monty Kroopkin,

Che Cafe Support Network