Sunday, February 27, 2011

"Inside Job" wins Oscar

‘Inside Job,’ Documentary That Skewers Banks and Economists, Wins Oscar (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature was presented Sunday night to Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs for the film Inside Job, about the causes of the 2008 global financial meltdown. In his remarks from the stage of the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, Mr. Ferguson said: “Not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that is wrong.” Mr. Ferguson, the film’s producer and director, wrote about the former Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers and the convergence of academic economics, Wall Street, and political power for The Chronicle Review last year.

gkkworks video, etc.


     A brief video about gkkworks, the firm helping our colleges with future construction planning. One of the firm's people appearing on screen (at 00:58) is David Hunt, who gave $500 to then-trustee Don Wagner's assembly race back in May.
 (See here
. Scroll into document.)
     Not that there's anything, um, wrong with that.
     Among the gkkworks projects flashing across the screen: ATEP.


     This video concerns the head facilities guy at the Los Angeles Community College District.

"Anyone who has remodeled a kitchen knows that there are always unanticipated issues"

LaVista
     The Reb and I have been doing some research into the Los Angeles Community College District Sustainable Building Program, and it’s HUGE. I’m amazed just at the number of firms cashing in—er, participating.
     You might try Googling “LACCD” and “construction,” see what you get!
     I came across an important "state of the district" letter from LACCD Chancellor Daniel J. LaVista, evidently promulgated just two months ago. It focuses on these construction projects (see Chancellor letter). The letter is remarkably upbeat about LACCD’s building program, though it does acknowledge the LA Times’ ongoing investigation (which resulted in the series currently running in the paper).
     In the letter, LaVista, who has been on the job only since August, explains that
I’d like to do two things: First, I’d like to explain my plan for the LACCD. Secondly, I’d like to give you an update on our incredibly successful construction program.
     Incredibly successful? Well, yeah, that’s what all those firms are saying too. Gosh, they're awfully positive about the whole dang thing!
     Here are a few of Dr. LaVista’s more memorable remarks (from that letter)*:

• Of course, anyone who has remodeled a kitchen knows that there are always unanticipated issues, and in a $6 billion construction program, we’ve had our share.

• The wise spending of taxpayer dollars is critically important, so we need to continue the strong management of this program….

• As many of you know, the Times has been looking into our building program since July 2009. When [former chancellor] Dr. [Tyree] Wieder sent her letter [announcing the investigation], we thought publication was imminent. Since then, we have been told many times that an article would be published any day. ¶ While the long and continuous investigation for more than 18 months has sometimes become a distraction from our core mission of serving the needs of our students and surrounding communities, we cannot deny the right of the Times to look into the spending of public monies.

Wieder
• Our construction program management team provides the necessary program, project and construction management expertise to properly manage the program and consists of District and consultant personnel selected from many of the best known and qualified firms in the industry. ¶ We have organized that management team with one set of consultant firms at each of the nine college locations where the construction takes place and another set at the District office to support the overall contractual, financial, and reporting of the program. [My emphasis.]

• Oversight is provided by a number of separate entities that report to the Board of Trustees and the District Citizens’ Oversight Committee, which is required by law to monitor bond funded construction. By law, the District is required to conduct regular independent audits…. The results of those audits have been uniformly positive, endorsing the effectiveness of our management, as well as demonstrating our willingness to look for and to make continuous improvements.

• The overall quality of construction on the program’s projects has been first rate.

• A few of our projects … have faced some challenges. Those were some of our very first projects, and on those the challenges have been resolved.

• We have thousands of construction, architectural, engineering and specialty firms working on our program. Sometimes they make mistakes or do not perform as well as we expect.

—Gosh, I've got an idea. It's kinda madcap. Maybe the community should look into all the money that's gone into the development of our own district's issue-laden kitchen remodel: ATEP!

Oops

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...