If the success of UC Merced is one of the top agenda items for state legislators, it's certainly not reflected by the recent turnout at Assembly committee meetings dedicated toward overseeing the campus' development.
Last week, only three legislators on the seven-member Assembly Select Committee on Development of a 10th University of California, Merced Campus, bothered to show up for its meeting, which is held a few times every year. At the committee's previous meeting in August last year, only two members showed up.
The committee is a nonvoting legislative panel first established by then-Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza during the late 1990s. Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani reestablished the committee last year. Its primary function is to monitor the progress of UC Merced and serve as a public information forum.
At least Galgiani and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, have been regular attendees at the meetings. Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D- Pasadena, attended last week's meeting. Assemblyman Tom Berryhill, R-Chowchilla, attended a tour of the campus prior to the meeting, but was absent at both meetings.
The other members of the committee, Assembly members Juan Arambula, D-Mendota, Nicole Parra, D-Bakersfield, and John Benoit, R-Moreno Valley, have been no- shows at both of the committee meetings within the past eight months.
And last week's meeting was an important one.
In the wake of the state's projected $16 billion budget deficit, UC Merced may face massive cuts. Under the governor's proposed 2008-09 budget, state funding for the University of California system would be reduced by $331.9 million, according to the California Budget Project. Any specific cuts to UC Merced's and all UC campus budgets would be decided by the UC Office of the President.
UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang confirmed at the meeting that any cuts to UC Merced's budget would be devastating at this point, as the campus is only three years old.
The committee members needed to hear that for themselves -- but unfortunately many of them were nowhere to be seen.
I don't know why many of these members were no-shows at the committee meetings -- but I hope it's not because they did not see the importance in attending. I know, from my experience working at the State Capitol, that unfortunately many members generally put issues that are perceived as outside of their district at the bottom of their priority list. I pray that is not the case with the committee -- because the success of UC Merced depends on regional cooperation.
What kind of message does that send, when the legislators who are supposed to be keeping tabs on the progress of the university don't even show up for a meeting that barely happens twice a year?
Hopefully, when the budget sessions begin and legislators start making their actual cuts, they will take a greater interest in protecting the UC's budget than this committee has shown toward the progress of UC Merced.
