Tag: Associated Students

Posted on

Allen/Rashidi

April 29th, 1970

KCSB interview with Bill Allen, Rashidi, Jim Trotter, and Steve Plevin.

Transcript

Allen: [00:00:04] Allen.

KCSB: [00:00:04] And then what’s your status legally? I guess you were arrested during Reagan came to down, and what’s happened to you since then?  Have you been bothered by the police?

Allen: [00:00:14] Consistently. The state, status legally is that I have three trials coming up, one on the 21st of May, which is the raid-, no, it’s the, um, Isla Vista disturbances, in which I’m accused of breaking most of the windows in Isla Vista for January or February 24th, I guess it is. Then I have another trial on the 31st. And that’s where the Reagan demonstration, which we were accused of initially disturbing the peace. And then after, after the arraignment, at the arraignment, they tacked on two other charges of inciting a riot and vulgarity against a police officer, which is their trip. You know, I mean, they keep adding and and and harassing. And then on June 8th, we have the Santa Barbara 19 or now 20 trials since I’ve been consolidated in that. So I have a lot of court things going on.

KCSB: [00:01:11] They can’t put all this together into one trial? 

Allen: [00:01:15] Oh no, there are separate charges every day.

KCSB: [00:01:17] How can you afford the court fees for three separate, three separate trials?

Allen: [00:01:21] I can’t. There are people who’ve helped out.  We’ve helped out some people in the past and are helping people out now and people are helping us out. 

KCSB: [00:01:27] Well, who’s going to open your defense?

Allen: [00:01:32] On campus, the, for the Privilege and Tenure thing that people at, uh, conducted their defense were Richard Wasserstrom, who’s a Panther UCLA lawyer for the Los Angeles. And Leon Letwin, who’s also in UCLA law school with Wasserstrom. And that hearing is completed, the disciplinary hearing, and they still haven’t received a transcript of some 900 pages of transcripts, and only about 480 were done on Tuesday or [unclear] Tuesday in the Isla Vista militia mischief or whatever the thing is. John Sink is defending me and for the campus demonstrations of Santa Barbara twentieths, John Sink and Roden. And then I’m not sure who’s going to defend me for the, for the Reagan demonstrations.

KCSB: [00:02:29] What about your suspension by the chancellor? Is that still in effect, or have you had your final hearing on that?

Allen: [00:02:35] Well, I’ve had the hearing, as I said, on the discipline, but they haven’t come up with a decision yet as to what the, what the discipline should be.

KCSB: [00:02:43] So you’re still waiting on that.

Allen: [00:02:45] Right, and we’re also anticipating another hearing, the Privilege and Tenure Committee, as to the violation of my privileges that I mentioned earlier.

KCSB: [00:02:53] And you appeal, what was, what’s the final appeal or at what stage of appeal are you now then?

Allen: [00:02:59] Well, I, we’re waiting for the Privilege and Tenure Committee to reply as to our request, which was made a week ago Sunday for an opening again of the, of my, of the hearing on the violation of my privileges.

KCSB: [00:03:14] If I can, I’d like to ask you some things about the Academic Senate. Do you think there’s a possibility that there’ll be some real reforms in the [unclear] if the current student pressure’s kept up?

Allen: [00:03:25] Oh, for sure. I don’t, I don’t see any other alternative. I think the Academic Senate is, is just being pompous at this point, just being incredibly arrogant. You know, I mean, like, they must realize that students are not going to let up on that pressure. I mean, no matter how much repression that they’ve, they’ve brought down this year, the same kind of stuff is happening on every campus.

KCSB: [00:03:45] What kind of faculty support do you have? I noticed the Academic Senate meetings I went, there were a few people, you know, that seemed to be pretty vocal, but what percentage would you say?

Allen: [00:03:55] Oh, really low. This is a very conservative Academic Senate. I mean, this Academic Senate is more like dinosaur, like a dinosaur than any other Academic Senate in the system. I mean, it’s more conservative than UCLA and UCLA is just, I mean, like a lethargic mass, you know.

KCSB: [00:04:14] Who’s being vocal in there right now? I know, I know Richard Harrison’s come otu with a few, a few statements.

Allen: [00:04:22] Well, there are a number of people that have been, you know, fairly vocal over a long period of time on the left side, the right side is much more vocal. And that’s, you know, led by Harry Girvetz, who was supposed to be the bastion of liberalism but, you know, it’s just very conservative, and Andron, who is just completely out of phase with reality. I think that that faction is much more significant in the academic sense here and deserves a lot more, more, press. I mean, they’re the people that are doing all the things in the Academic Senate. No one else gets a chance. They’ve got so much time, and they’ve had it since it was a ci-, since it was a state college. Most of these people that are are powerful on this campus are holdovers from when this was, you know, just a mediocre state college. And that’s why, you know, you get this sort of attitude of just incredible conservatism.

KCSB: [00:05:17] How do you feel about the tenure system in general? Should it be scrapped altogether or revised or what would you propose?

Allen: [00:05:22] I think it should be scrapped. I think the tenure system is is just a poor excuse for some kind of refuge. You know, security. I mean, people build up a kind of specialization in their field, publish, you know, generally a lot of crap, but volumes of it and and then, you know, hide behind the tenure system. So they never create. They never produce. You know, it’s a, it’s really a bummer system, I think, all the way through.

KCSB: [00:05:56] We’re going to take telephone calls, questions if you can phone the minute nine six one two four two four, and we’ll have the questions brought in to us here. All right, well, Rashidi’s here with us and he’s got a trial going on a lot too, so could you rap about that for a few minutes? What’s the story, what are the charges, and how the trial is going?

Rashidi: [00:06:17] Well, the jury came in this morning and I was convicted of, on two counts. The counts were obstructing, no, counts were disturbing the peace, obstructing the pig and battery on a pig, and I was convicted on the obstructing and resisting and on the battery, and I have to go back for sentencing on May the 20th.

KCSB: [00:06:45] This was during the Reagan coming-. 

Rashidi: [00:06:47] Reagan demonstration.

KCSB: [00:06:47] Were you arrested in any other, in IV or, first time or second time?

Rashidi: [00:06:55] Well, in addition to that, while I was in court, you know, right after, I think it was Monday, I went up to court. The two sheriffs who were testifying against me, well we weren’t sure if [unclear] Santa Barbara policemen arrested me again after court on a charge of grand theft, which was a warrant which was put out by the UCLA police department on two counts. Now, this is something that is utterly ridiculous. They haven’t, still this, as yet, have not informed me of what I’m supposed to have stolen or when or anything, and I’m supposed to call down to the Los Angeles court and find out what this is all about. In addition to that, in one incident, which I would like to tell about is last Tuesday. Last Tuesday night, I was walking home about two o’clock and I was stopped by two Santa Barbara Sheriffs, and when they first stopped me they, the one on the passenger side said, Rashidi, what are you doing out this late at night? Don’t you know that there are people who would like to catch you out at night and off you? You know, and emphatically, you know, and he said it’s about two or three times, you know, then they said, well, can we search you, you know? And I said, well, do I have any choice? You know, so they got out and they searched me. Then one of them started looking around on the ground with a flashlight all around the area and he came back to me and said, you threw this. He came with a red pill and said, you threw this down. I saw you make a furtive movement and you threw this down. And they said, well, we can arrest you now or you can go down and talk to Sergeant Briganti. And I said, well, you know, I didn’t want to be arrested, so, you know, let’s go talk to Briganti. So they took me down to their station, their headquarters they had over in Devero, and they took me off in this little room and they said, well, we’re not gonna arrest you, you know, we just want to talk to you. And they went through this long rap, and in essence, what they said was that, you know, they made this appeal to me, you know, well, you’re an intelligent guy, you know, you’re a good guy, you’re going to make it, graduate, and you’re going to be going and getting a job and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, there’s no reason for us to be fighting each other, you know, with some of these other these white guys, you know, who are really insane, they’re crazy. They just want to cause trouble. You know, we really got to get rid of these people, you know, so why don’t you just stay out of it? You know, and this, they rapped with me for about half hour, 45 minutes.

KCSB: [00:09:44] What was your response to that?

Rashidi: [00:09:46] Well I, well I told them, as always, they’ve made mistakes like that before, you know, that they are good dudes, you know, and I like them and we believe in the same things, you know, and, well, you know, naturally I wasn’t going to be belligerent, you know, and cuss them out or anything like that ’cause there was nothing but pigs in the building and, you know, they had me surrounded. I was in a little room and there was about 10 of them waiting outside. But I mean, I told them, you know, what I thought, you know, and then the two pigs who were really picking me up took me back to where, where they originally picked me up, and they parked, turned off the lights, and then they both got out on either side of me and, and one said, well, you know, no more games, you know, we’re this serious business from now on, you know, you’re an intelligent guy, you know what we mean, you know, that type of thing. And I, you know, took it as a threat, you know, I think that the, this is what was meant by, also previously, you know, in the building, I didn’t mention this. They said, well, Rashidi, what do you think’s going to happen, you know, and I said, well man, I said, I can’t say. It all depends if you guys rip someone else off. I feel like, I think if you kill someone else that there’s going to be a lot of shi-, crap, you know? I’m not supposed to say that, you know. In Isla Vista, and they said, well, if you guys keep doing what you’re doing, I think that’s what’s going to happen. And I said, well, you know, we’re right and we’re not going to stop because you guys are wrong.

KCSB: [00:11:17] Well, Jim Trotter also ran into trouble with the police department in the last few demonstrations. I wonder if you could tell us about that.

Trotter: [00:11:23] Well, I was charged by the grand jury with three counts of felony, arson, battery on a peace officer and interfering with an executive officer in the line of duty. And I was acquitted on all three counts by a jury trial in the superior court. And tomorrow I have disciplinary hearings with Dean Reynolds and the conduct committee or some such thing about events that took place on February 12th, which was a demonstration in front of the administration building in which several people got clubbed and things, and I’ve been charged with violations of the new student code that you can’t do anything, oh you know, the very elaborate one where I was charged with disru-, interfering with the operation of the university or something, and that was when the university had closed down the administration building and had the police out there, yet had not declared the building closed. So that’s the-

Allen: [00:12:23] That was the day that I went [unclear].

Trotter: [00:12:28] Yeah, right, clear, you’re correct.

KCSB: [00:12:28]  I remember when William Kunstler was on campus, he was talking about the jury and the judicial, judicial system in general. And he said, you know, in theory, it’s an equitable system and the jury system is as goody-, good as any if justice is done equally. What are your impressions about, all three of you, about the, about the judicial system [unclear]?

Allen: [00:12:47] I’d like to have had you seen Rashidi, I mean. Like, there, first of all, there were nine senile old ladies. I mean, that, you know, had never been sexually satisfied in their life, no way that they could have been, I mean, thin lipped, you know, and just flat foreheads and, and then three guys there. One was about maybe in his late 30s, early 40s, and the other two were like, you know, retired guys. I mean, you’re supposed to be tried by your peers, you know, and the average age of these people must have been in the late 40s, early 50s. Like, that is not, you know, those are not his peers. Those people don’t have the same lifestyle, they don’t have the same attitudes towards things. They’re more concerned with, you know, preserving their status quo, even though it’s ugly and unsatisfying to them. God, it was this ugly-, there’s no way that those people could find him guilty legitimately. They cannot possibly be a legitimate jury.

Rashidi: [00:13:46] You know, it would, what he said, you know, like, I defended myself, you know, on this particular charge, on these charges. And the first thing that I did was objected to the constitution of the jury, because first of all, of the people that were there, you know, available for selection, there was not one black person, first of all. There were a couple of young people, but the defense automatically exclude those when [unclear], you know, their policies automatically exclude any student or, or any black person or, or any young person, you know, because they feel that they’ll be sympathetic. And being there’s, by the jury commissioner’s own testimony, only one percent students that are chosen for the entire, the entire year, you know, serve on a jury. They’re very easily-, they get seven, they can eliminate seven people in a municipal, you know, a misdemeanor trial and 14 in a felony that it’s impossible for a student to get another student or almost impossible for a student to get another student on a jury so that the average age of jurors by the jury commissioner’s own testimony, really under this case, is 47 to 68 years old, and for the most part, retired people. And I mean, in my case, it was just ridiculous. You know, the pigs who testified contradicted each other. I had reputable witnesses. I had Kief Dotson from the news press who testified on my behalf. I had Catherine Peak, who’s lived here 50 years. I had Officer Becento who’s a sheriff, you know. Although he didn’t see the incident, he testified as to what I was doing there that was not try-, kinda-, trying to cause any trouble. And there’s just no way, you know, and, and, and, and the prosecutor handed down this thing, this rap about law and order and how these people, it was their duty to prosecute me, their duty to find me guilty to stop all these demonstrations, you know.

Allen: [00:15:54] Because it’s cost them tax dollars.

Rashidi: [00:15:56] Yeah. And, you know-

Allen: [00:15:57] That’s the thing they’re into, right.

Rashidi: [00:16:02] And they…thirty five that I, there’s no way they could have convicted me, but they did.

KCSB: [00:16:08] Can we ask you, Bill, about the events in Isla Vista and what you think about violence in general against, the difference in violence with-, against people and against property, and what’s your thought at both the burning of the bank and the police violence on the shooting of Kevin Moran?

Allen: [00:16:26] Yeah, well, I think there is a, you know, distinct difference between violence and sabotage. I’m going cough. I think that the acts of, of collective sabotage against the bank on the 24th of February and the 25th of February and again this last month, were, were acts that were actually, were, were clearly acts against property. They weren’t against people. In no case was any, was any person fired upon unless somebody had, had fired upon them first. In other words, in, in no case, that I know of in Isla Vista, were the pigs attacked until after they attacked first. And every case, they committed some brutal act and then people retaliated. And, you know, I think for all intents and purposes, what happened in Isla Vista is, is a direct result of an overzealous, ugly police force, I mean, that, that wants to see, you know, a lot of shit going on in Isla Vista, because that’s exactly how, that’s ex-, h-, that, sorry about that, that’s exactly, you know, how they’re going to bring this thing to a head and completely quash any kind of, of significant social change. And th-, and they’re so effective at it, man. Like they, they had the [unclear]. You saw what they did the last time with Operation Wagon Train, a sneak attack on a group of students, man, as if they were Vietcong, you know, like those are the kinds of sneak attacks that they have in Vietnam. Exactly. You know, and those are the kind of sneak attacks that they, you know, that they impute that the Indians used to have, even though it’s clear that the settlers had a lot more attacks on the Indians than the Indians had on the settlers.

KCSB: [00:18:19] Now, what about the main difference between the last demonstrations and the ones were part of the bank was burned, but quite a number of students have come out and said they’re against violence and were trying to defend the bank, one of them being Kevin Moran?

Allen: [00:18:30] Yeah, I think that, that what happened there was, was that there weren’t very many people that I knew that really were hot to have a riot on the, in this last riot kind of situation. I don’t think anybody was, was turned on to see any more kinds of rioting going on in Isla Vista. You know, several of us went down to, to talk to Jerry Rubin and attempt to, to get him to come up here and just be in the park, in that, you know, we felt that it was important that, that he come, but it was also important that, you know, that we show that there was a sense of community in Isla Vista starting to develop, and that that sense of-. 

KCSB: [00:19:06] Was Rubin actually here that day?

Allen: [00:19:07] Well, if he is, if he was, he was in a good disguise because I didn’t him there. And, and, and the riot that ensued, you know, after Jerry Rubin was here, was not because, you know, Jerry Rubin didn’t come. I think most of the people felt somewhat disappointed that he didn’t come, but what happened effectively, it seemed to me, is that, is that the police desperately wanted a riot, you know, and when all of those people were standing on the steps of the bank on, on Thursday night, it was clear that nobody was going to go out and throw a Molotov cocktail at a, at a bunch of liberals and conservatives standing on the bank trying to protect it. I mean, nobody was going to do that, you know, and it was over effectively. And yet the police had to come in. They felt compelled to come in. And the next night, the same thing happened, you know, it seemed to me. The fire had been put out and nobody was going to, I think, run up and throw another Molotov cocktail at those people standing there.

Rashidi: [00:20:02] You know, I think, in terms of, you know, you know, all this tal-, talk about violence, you know, which mainly, all the people who talk about it in the Academic Senate, the Chancellor, you know, they alwa-, you know, they always refer back to, you know, that damn bank, you know, or, you know, something of this sort. They try to play down, you know, the fact that Kevin Moran was killed by a pig. You know, they play down the acts of brutality that were committed against the people in the community. They play down the acts of brutality that instigated the whole thing, you know, and, and-

Allen: [00:20:37] You know, nobody talks about this guy getting hit with a police car. Nobody talks about the nine people who were shot, you know, one of them now dead. And yet, you know, we keep hearing this thing about, you know, people out, you know, out against violence, you know? Well, most of the people that I know that are fairly radical on this campus were against violence, and I too, and, and to some end, they were trying to build barricades so the police didn’t swoop in and kill people like they finally did. I mean, they were, people were left merciless. They were left right, you know, in the hands of the pigs when they swooped in.

Rashidi: [00:21:11] And, if I could, yeah, I, I, I, you know, personally hold, the, specifically the Academic Senate, the Chancellor, you know, and number of other people on this campus who, and, you know, in Santa Barbara, who have consistently resisted change. I think they are responsible. You know, I think that the people who are engaging, you know, the small, who’s engaging in, you know, the real daring acts, you know, were reacting out of the, the, the, I mean, from legitimate, let me word the le-, legitimate emotions. I mean, they were frustrated because every time they try to get anything done, they’re constantly, you know, they just spit in their face, you know, the Chancellor just, just, just said, to hell with student voice. You know, the people in Santa Barbara said to hell with you people, you’re out of this control, and how do they expect people to react? This people reacted normally. They were frustrated. And, you know, they taught me in psychology, frustration leads to aggression, and this is something that they knew was going to come about. And I thin-, you know, I think Cheadle’s responsible and I think that he ought to be hunged for it.

Allen: [00:22:16] I’ll tell you, if there were-

Rashidi: [00:22:18] Mmm hmm. And the Academic Senate.

Allen: [00:22:18] If the grand jury were-

Rashidi: [00:22:18] You can bet.

Allen: [00:22:18] -composed of Isla Vista residents, I’ll tell you who the people that would be indicted would be. It’d be Cheadle and Varly and Evans and Reynolds and Webster and Buchanan and all the rest of those, those people, Mayor Firestone, county supervisors-

Rashidi: [00:22:35] Yeah, and I think also those people, you know, the students who didn’t, like, you know, for a long time-. 

Allen: [00:22:40] And Ronald Reagan.

Rashidi: [00:22:40] -the whole, the whole thing that, that we were trying to say was like students, let’s get together and let’s show them that we’re all together and we all want change. People are so apathetic. They wouldn’t come out. You know, a lot of them wouldn’t come out. 8 thousand, yes, you know, 8 thousand came out for a while and then, you know, they started to, drifting off, you know, and then pretty soon was left, maybe 500 people still struggling for change, and the rest of the people said, to hell with it. You know, I think if they had all come out and got together and, and shown that they were behind change like they say they are now, you know, when all these things have happened, like has been killed, people have been shot, and things have happened. You know, if they had come out and showed that there was student support, and we had exercised student power, real student power, like the BSU’s been calling for, ever since we started this whole thing with North Hall. We always related the things that we were doing to the larger issues of student power. If you check back on the records, and our statements always been related to students should get together. But they didn’t, you know, and now they all sorry, or mad, or whatever, but when they could have got off their asses and done something, they didn’t, and now they want to come and condemn those people who had guts enough to do something and to beat and to defy that illegitimate authority that’s oppressing them and oppressing all of us.

KCSB: [00:23:53] We’ll be back to this discussion with Jim Trotter, Bill Allen, and Rashidi in a few moments after election coverage from KCSB FM, Santa Barbara.

Rashidi: [00:28:27] So therefore, you know, I mean, that’s the whole thing that they’ve been running down on Black, you know, Chicanos, that, that we’re irrational, we’re emotional. Yeah, you know, and, and-. 

KCSB: [00:28:36] We’re back, back on the air with Rashidi, Bill Allen, and Jim Trotter, talking about the violence in the streets-. 

Plevin: [00:28:43] Steven Plevin.

KCSB: [00:28:43] And Steve Plevin also, excuse me. I think we got a telephone question? Yeah, this is for Bill. Where do you stand on issues such as the Goleta Slew and other conservation issues, or do you have time for such concerns, in light of your present predicament?

Allen: [00:28:57] Oh, yeah. I think that there was a statement recently by the Chancellor, and I think it’s an outgrowth of what’s happened here, and that is that they’re not going to touch the slew now. A lot of things have been saved, you know, since we started demonstrating and putting our bodies on the line out here. One of them was Rexroth, and the other one is the slew, and so some good things have happened. I’m very much, you know, more concerned with ecology than, than it would appear in the last two or three months. Some people may remember that like three months ago in a day we said in its terms, we [unclear] on the oil. That was the day before the demonstrations started here. I would like to see people really getting militant about ecology. And I’m not, you know, I’m not really mincing any words. I’d really like to see ’em get it on against the kinds of polluters and exploiters that, that corporations are in this country.

KCSB: [00:29:44] You don’t think the environment issue is a cop out then, like a lot of people do, taking-

Allen: [00:29:49] No, I just think it has to be put in political perspective, man. It’s a political problem right now because the major exploiters and, and the major polluters and, and those people concerned with, you know, increasing their consuming base, which is basically an exploitative kind of trip, are the corporations in this country. And they’re so good at it, man. I mean, they’re just, they’ve got all the technology that they need to destroy the Earth to turn it into one agrobusiness garden kind of environment, you know, and smooth out all the regularity, I mean all the variability, just like they’re, they’re cutting off all the cultural variability.

Rashidi: [00:30:26] They like to pave the world.

Allen: [00:30:27] Right on.

Rashidi: [00:30:27] Just have the whole world-

Allen: [00:30:28] And they’d like to have the whole world culturally middle class, which it means that they’re going to consume for creature comforts, and it’s just, I mean, that’s their, their scheme of the world, you know.

KCSB: [00:30:38] Well, I’d like to ask Rashidi about that. There’s been some talk, I understand, from Black leaders in the East and they’re saying that ecology is a cop out and isn’t the real issue and that that should be put secondary and fighting racism first. Would you go along with that?

Rashidi: [00:30:51] I think that, the, what most of the Black leaders are saying and what my side down in the Black Panther Party out in UCLA said, you know, today is that, and like, you know, I’ve been here in Isla Vista, you know, for over a year, you know, like I’ve gotten out of the, you know, the environment, you know, of living, you know, in the ghetto, you know, and that people are there-, people there are concerned with much more basic personal things, you know, like eating, you know, like working like, you know, pigs constantly, you know, I mean, I mean like here, you know, we have harassment, you know, and it’s, and it’s, and it’s intolerable, you know, because the people aren’t used to it, you know, to that extent like in the Black community, at least once a week, like a young Black person is ripped off by a pig, you know, and, and, you know, it’s, you know, justifiable homicide. And these are things that these people are concerned with. The thing about ecology is, I think that [unclear] a lot of people do use it as a cop out. A lot of people, like Nixon, you know, got behind it, you know, and Reagan even said that, you know, that bull sh after he came out and said this thing about, we have to find a happy medium between progress and preserving natural resources, you know, and that a lot of, I think a lot of people are into it, you know, as a cop-, I, you know, as something that, that, that, that no one can condemn them for, you know, and yet they can still say that they’re trying to, you know, to help, you know, but I think there are a lot of serious people. I think Bill’s serious because I seen him, you know, put his own body on the line, you know, his own self, his who-, his own career, you know, risk going to jail, you know. I think if people are concerned enough to get at the cause of it and point out who’s doing, like you know, these corporations and then tie that in, you know, to their exploitation of the ghetto, the exploitation of, of the students here, the exploitation of the entire world, then they’re really on the right track, but if they’re only talking about preserving their own environment for their own personal enjoyment, you know, then I say, to hell with ’em.

KCSB: [00:33:07] Well, if I can give you just one specific case, I know in South Carolina, they’re trying to put a factory [unclear] Head, I think it’s called, and the choice there is whether they’re going to put in this factory and pollute the Bay or whether the factory will be put in and it will give jobs to a large number of Blacks who are in the poorest county in the United States. How do you make a choice like that?

Rashidi: [00:33:28] Well, I really couldn’t, you know, not being here, not knowing the specific situations that they’re confronted with, you know, all Black people are not necessarily working for the good of, you know, the entire world to give the community or whatever. You know, they’re Black capitalists who only care about making money. You know, I’d want to find out if those Black people have some interest in that factory being built, you know, but I think that the important thing is that if technology is used correctly, you know, I think, and I think me and Bill at times disagreed on this and [unclear] other, you know, the radicals, to quote white radicals in quote, you know, that I think that technology can be used to increase, you know, people’s lives, and to better people’s lives, but as long as it’s under control of the corporations and not in the hands of the people that, you know, that we’re just going to keep polluting, and, you know, none of us are going to have any place to live. I think Trotter, you know, really is more into that to me. I like-. 

Trotter: [00:34:44] Well, the whole, the whole ecology movement, the whole concept of ecology is, is ultimately a very revolutionary concept. There’s no way to deal with the problems without having a revolutionary perspective, because ecology is a, is based in scientific fact that demonstrates that the whole world is one global sphere and that internationalism is the only possible solution to these problems. You can’t have specific national interest or local interests.

KCSB: [00:35:09] You’re probably aware of what happened to the Honeywell Corporation’s stockholders meeting yesterday, which was disrupted by a lot of people, young people who’ve held proxies, and [unclear]. Do you see this sort of thing happening in the future?

Trotter: [00:35:22] Yeah, I personally know several friends of mine whose parents are very wealthy that are buying stock in, in corporations designed to end pollution, or clean up pollution, or are using their stocks in whatever way they can. It’s a very minimal type of effort because using, trying to vote in non pollution measures, say, in a stock-, in a board meeting is almost contradictory because you’re going to vote yourself out of your profit. Our pollution is some of these profit is, you know, as a little slogan goes, and it happens to be very true. There’s just no, there’s no question about the reason that there is pollution is because it is in the interest of a capitalist class to, you know, to sluff off that duty. They have a social duty because it’s not enforceable.

KCSB: [00:36:09] Probably the major issue of last month’s regents meeting was moved by Regent Dutton to have the university’s seven million dollars worth of General Motors stock. The proxies for that being used to fight for some reforms of GM, and this, this failed do you have any comment on that? 

Allen: [00:36:26] Can you repeat that?

KCSB: [00:36:26] Last, last month regents meeting, one of the biggest issues was how the university would vote their stock in the upcoming General Motors stockholders meeting.

Allen: [00:36:40] Yeah.

KCSB: [00:36:40] The university holds seven million dollars worth of GM stock and there was a move on to have the stock used to put some pressure on some reforms in General Motors, and this failed.

Allen: [00:36:54] Where did it fail, the Regential level, or-

KCSB: [00:36:56] The Regents.

Allen: [00:36:56] They, they refused to. Well, sure, you have all the biggest capitalists in the state, I mean-. 

Trotter: [00:37:02] They did a lot to tear down the image of the University as a liberal vehicle for reforming society when in reality, it’s the University of California that produces all the nuclear warheads that the country uses; it’s the University of California that won’t vote for reform in the, the largest producer of air pollution, and it’s stripping away all of the facades that the University has been trying to maintain over the past few years while all the disruptions have been going on.  They’ve been trying to say, we’re working for social change; we’re trying to improve the environment; we’re trying to improve people’s lives, but when it comes down to the vote, they’re not.  They’re not interested in that.  They’re interested in their own profits and this is, this is the kind of issue we’ve been talking about now for a long time, and people are going to start seeing it in a real sense when they see how these votes go.

KCSB: [00:37:45] Well, we have environmental problems a lot closer to home right out in Isla Vista, so I wonder if each of you could give an idea on how you can make Isla Vista a decent place to live? How can they clean up this community?

Allen: [00:37:55] Yeah, I think we ought to shoot for, on Isla Vista, a program where we do away with cars in Isla Vista completely. I mean, if it’s going to be a student [unclear], let’s turn it into, as utopian a one as possible? To that end though, we might do is have just emergency lanes running down the streets that presently exist and, and have those emergency lanes on any bike lanes and, and the rest of the street be torn up and turn into organic gardens. And it could happen, like people are starting to plant all over Isla Vista in vacant lots, you know, and there, there seems to be a lot of energy towards functional kinds of things like that Isla Vista. I mean, you know, a lifestyle that people are starting to evolve is, is not just a communal one for sex and, and leeching off of people, you know. It’s one in which people can start living real lives in which they, you know, can control some of their own subsistence, hopefully all of it eventually. In addition to that, I think that, that, that they ought to put a limit like the, that limit being right now on, on any more building in Isla Vista.  No more building should go up there. There’s too many people already, and they ought to turn some of those vacant lots that the realty companies own that they can’t build on anymore anyway if we put the limits on; gotta build at least one of them into a daycare center to give some of the women in Isla Vista some liberated time. And then I think we ought to, we have to think about getting some of those merchants who have been gouging the people for years now to start contributing some money to, say, a breakfast program for some of the kids on Isla Vista and, and in some of the Goleta ghettos down here where the kids certainly don’t get very good meals. And I think that we ought to start evaluating exactly how much longer we’re going to permit the kind of rent gouging and the kind of inflated market prices and the kinds of inflated gasoline prices to persist in Isla Vista. So I think that, you know, that the best way to get any kind of sense of community out there is to start turning the place into something that, that people really want to live in, you know, instead of, that people just want to be transient in, you know, and that people are willing to put up with because they’re getting a quote education so they can fit within the system again.

KCSB: [00:40:05] I got a fact from a listener. He says that the ecology problem exists from a consumption economy supported by advertisement.  If advertisement were outlawed, would it help the ecology movement?

Trotter: [00:40:18] It certainly couldn’t hurt the ecology movement, but the single biggest problem is not necessarily just advertising, but the fact that people, you know, have to live a certain type of lifestyle in this country to survive. I mean, you know, people that live in, especially in Isla Vista kinds of situations, where you’re, you’re really dependent on grocery stores for your source of food and the fact that the energy necessary to supply, say, a TV dinner, you know, go to the icebox, open the icebox, take the [unclear] out, put it in your oven, and prepare that. The energy necessary to do that in this country is, is, is in fact the real manifestation of imperialism. The United States uses 54 percent of the world’s resources and it’s only five percent of the world’s population. Those resources are used to accomplish acts just like that, to open your door, to prepare a TV dinner, to drive your car, do all these very highly technological processes that require energy that is deprived in the other 95 percent of the world’s population.

KCSB: [00:41:15] Would you go along with Jerry Rubin’s idea of having planning in the morning and farming in the morning and playing music in the afternoon and then making love at night?

Trotter: [00:41:24] That’s definitely, that’s not just Jerry Rubin’s idea. Buckminster Fuller advocates, you know, the same thing-. 

Allen: [00:41:28] Tribal people all over the world have been doing it for thousands of years and digging it. I mean, it’s just, I’ve lived in that kind of environment, and it’s hip.

KCSB: [00:41:37] I’d like to get into a few questions concerning the student elections that are going on right now, at least the votes that are being counted. One question that we asked the candidates last Sunday night and might be worthwhile asking you is the fact that a couple of years ago, most radicals on campus and minority groups were condemning AS government as being totally ineffective. And this election at least, we’ve seen a lot of minority groups and radical, radical individuals seeking office. Can you explain this, the change?

Allen: [00:42:05] Let’s wait and see the results.

Rashidi: [00:42:07] Well, I think that the reason that, I know, you know, before last year, you know, we got into it, we pointed out to people that the student, the student government really didn’t have any power. The administration really didn’t listen to them. You have people like Paul Sweet, you know, in there who, who basically were administration boys, and this is the type of people that, you know, were in there. And the reason that I think that we became involved was to force the administration to deal with the question of whether students had any power or not, or they were gonna listen to students or not, and I think that this year, you know, they showed that they wouldn’t. And I think that most of the people who are running this year who, you know, have labels on, you know, whatever side you want to label them, you know, are dealing with this question and the whole thing, the whole reason is to bring it out to the students, you know, that they will not listen to us, you know, and that the present system is ineffective and that there is no power whatsoever in the hands of students. People like, Taz Do, you know, and Perry, you know, we talk about getting lawyers, you know, and things like this, you know, that is not going to work, you know, and it’s obvious and I don’t see how after the, the, the, the way that the administration has acted, the statements that they’ve made, have you been reading the things they made in the news press, you know, about the students? You know, how we are distorting issues, you know, while they’re the ones that are distorting issues, how the Academic Senate has been con-, they just completely ignoring. They have just said, to hell with you. You know, and people have been really reading what they’ve been saying, you know, and I think this is a thing, And students are going to have to realize that because as long as they think that that student government, you know, as it presently stands, is going to bring in some results, it’s just going to be going down a blind alley and eventually, it’s going to happen, you know, because people’s awareness, you know, you know, like the awareness today is much more than it was last year at this time, and it’s going to be at a higher level at this time next year. You know, eventually they’re going to realize that this present system, you know, is, is just not one that’s designed to give students any voice. You know, the university wasn’t built that way and it wasn’t the students, you know, the way the system was set up, students weren’t, you know, it’s a game, you know. They let the students play around here with their little money, which they’re now trying to take back, you know, and I personally think that they financed this move to take away, you know, to do away with the student funds you raise, and then this propaganda thing they’ve been running, you know, about where this money is going, you know. I think if the issues are made clear to students that keep that, but I think that’s the reason people have become involved, you know, because they, the people who were n-, were on there before were not even attempting to really articulate truly, you know, the grievances of student issues, but they wanted to be, you know, quote, responsible, end quote. And that’s another thing that I’ve, you know, had experience with in the Black community, you know, the responsible Negroes, the house niggers, we call them. And you got a lot of house nigger students, you know, one in particular, you know, I won’t mention, you know, on that committee that they put me and [unclear] on, you know, after Bill’s thing, you know, to, to investigate, for student input into departments, you know. We resigned because we knew basically that the committee did not have any power whatsoever. There was one student in there who is now working for the administration who called various other student members and told them, well, you know, you ought to stick on this committee because, you know, like, it’ll be really good for you. You know, you’ll make a lot of good contacts, you know, and basically they’re selling out student interests, you know, you know, their, for their own personal gain and not there to, to, to, to see the students really get a voice. They’re there because they’ve been handpicked by the man, you know, and there are a number of students in these positions. And, and that’s the type of thing we’re going to see through. That’s the kind of thing we’re going to have to deal with, you know.

KCSB: [00:46:04] From the earlier election returns from the UCEN, where they’re counting the ballots from the student elections, it looks as if the more moderate candidates are building up a sizable lead. Do you interpret this as a sign of, some sort of student backlash to what’s been going on, this, the radical, well, I don’t know what you want to call-, the office holders that we’ve had, and the disturbances in Isla Vista?

Allen: [00:46:25] Yeah, I don’t think there were too many radical officeholders. There were, you know, some that supposedly are-. 

KCSB: [00:46:37] If you could call him-. 

Trotter: [00:46:37] The part of the, the moderate upswing in candidates, I think is not necessarily due so much to a backlash; the backlash is probably a benefit than more the number of people who voted, you know, a more conscientious student body. I’ve forgotten how many s-, they’ve estimated voted this time, but it’s more, much a significant greater number than last time. But the fact that in the last year, student government has been so insignificant, so totally insignificant, that only, like the fraternity and established traditional organized groups have any kind of power to win those seats. And last year, those people who can see themselves as radicals or were in groups such as that, had an organizational base in which they could, you know, run for office and won. And this year, people have learned that organizations’ how it’s done, and the more moderate elements are better, are more organized now. And it represents their organization because I don’t think the student body has become any more backlashist than it ever was. It’s still basically progressive.

KCSB: [00:47:30] Will the campus be a swing towards conservatism while people try and control El Gaucho and groups such as Asia and the Radical Union.

Trotter: [00:47:38] Any depth of, any organization that finds itself in a structured power situation like this is inevitably going to try to take control of El Gaucho and whatever media things they can.

Rashidi: [00:47:48] And I think a lot has to do with fear, you know, how the students are afraid of, you know, of the man coming. I think KCSB is afraid, you know, that the man is going to come down on them again. I think that what happened to KCSB was just, you know, inexcusable, and I, and, and the response that came from KCSB in regards to what happened, you know, I remember-

Allen: [00:48:13] It was lukewarm at best.

Rashidi: [00:48:16] Yeah, when they tried to play that album, and went [unclear] when they just called and told you not to play that album, you know.

Allen: [00:48:22] And that’s amazing, you know, I remember that, man.

Rashidi: [00:48:23] What, what i-, what is this man, you know, and people, you know, still make justifications, you know, they said, well, we don’t underst-, you, you guys said, I said, well, we don’t understand because we were so responsible, you know, and we were really being good guys, and you cut us off, you know.

Allen: [00:48:36] They were being, you guys were being less than responsible, I think, you know. Freedom in this country doesn’t mean, you know, freedom from responsibility. I mean, it means exactly that you have to be responsible and find out what’s going on and I don’t think this station has done.

Rashidi: [00:48:49] You’re supposed to be responsible to-

Allen: [00:48:50] I don’t think this station’s been objective.

Rashidi: [00:48:52] The students, you know, and not to, police about the show-

Allen: [00:48:57] Could you imagine what Beck would have done? Could you imagine what Beck would have done if they told us she had to stop publishing the papers? She’d have told them to get, get hosed, man. She would have published it anyway. She would have gone publish it any place, you know, on, on toilet paper, you know, and what you guys should have done has gotten another transmitter and transmitted, man, because you could have done it.

Rashidi: [00:49:17] That whole myth of, you know, objectivity, and what do you, I mean, what do you mean by objective? To me, it seems like with people usually, you know, what I mean by responsibility and objectivity, they mean you are using the official reports of the police departments, you know, or the official statement by the mayor. And then they say, well, you know, now we’re being objective, you know, and that’s bullshit because the, the, the sheriff, you know, has a definite point of view, you know, and obviously, if people [unclear] anti-student, you know, and I think that Becca’s positions, Becca’s position and the position of the El Gaucho this year has been pro student opinion, you know, I think most students do agree that there need to be change. They might all, not all agree on, you know, the tactics, you know, what they generally agree on the things that should be done. I think that that was reflected, you know, in the newspapers and, and she, many times I read in the paper myself that, you know, I thought that they weren’t militant enough. You know, I thought that they should have declared, you know, you know exactly, you know, where they were coming from, a, they did eventually, you know, what, from the get go, they tell exactly where they’re coming from and, you know, explain all this, you know, and ran it down, you know. What she asked for, peop-, you know, if you don’t agree with me, come on in and write your own article, you know. You know, and people didn’t, you know. So like basically, you know, they were just jiving and they, I don’t know if they’re just, if they’re still so hung up in the authoritarian shit that they went through with their mothers and fathers or what, you know, I think I’ve been in this authority, but you got to recognize that you are a human being, that you have a mind, you know, and that you are legitimate in yourself, you know. No one has to give them, you legitimacy. You’re responsible, you know, you are responsible yourself. You make yourself responsible. You’re responsible to whatever you believe in, you know. But, uh, you know, I think that’s just, you know, that whole argument, you know, objectivity, you know, it’s just, and you know, so-called factual reporting, just like, OK, if, if someone said, well, you know, the pigs shot Kevin Moran, then people would say, well, that’s an irresponsible statement, you know, it’s true. You should have said, well, Moran was killed. And then, that’s one fact, OK, we know he was killed. OK, another fact, at approximately [unclear] of the time, a policeman said that his rifle accidentally fired, you know, and the sheriff even admits that, you know, you see what I mean? I mean, and then you might say, well, the sheriff before that there were snipers, and we all knew that there was no snipers, see, I mean, you can just completely distort what went down, you know, see what I mean? But, you know, I think that’s just, you know, totally bullshit. I think what these people mean by objectivity is they want a pro establishment, pro police, pro authoritarian trip going down in the El Gaucho, you know. And I think that, you know, I just keep remembering, you know, a statement that the guy, that, that day, we had one of the rallies, got from Berkeley. He said he was trying to figure out when this fascism began, you know, when can you actually say that there’s fascism, and he said, that he figured out that it’s when the people succumb to the authoritarian trip.  They succumb to the oppression. When KCSB says, OK, the sheriffs are wrong, they’re denying our constitutional right, but we’ll go out there anyway, you know, and that’s when fascism is in. And, you know, when people say, well, they’re pissed off at us, you know, and even though we’re right, well, we’ll be responsible, what they consider responsible and we’re right with they agree with, you know. If the Santa Barbara News Press is responsible, you know, and you know where they’re coming from, they’re considered responsible, you know, and you know what they are?

Allen: [00:53:05] They’re supposed to be one of the best papers on the coast. I hope you never-. 

Rashidi: [00:53:09] I hope you never become responsible. That’s what being responsible means, because they’re responsible to the sheriff, they’re responsible to the mayor. You know, they’re responsible to-. 

Allen: [00:53:17] The oil interests, man.

Rashidi: [00:53:18] Damn right. You know, that’s who they’re irresponsible to.

KCSB: [00:53:21] Ok, well, thank you very much. We’d like to thank our guests tonight. Steve Plevin, Jim Trotter, Bill Allen and Rashidi. Following this program will be the news. Our guests next week on this program should be the president elect of the Associated Students and the administrative and executive vice president select. This is KCSB FM from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

KCSB: [00:53:45] The opinions expressed reflect those of the speaker and not necessarily those of KCSB, the Associated Students or the Regents of the University of California. Responsible representatives of opposing viewpoints are offered reasonable opportunity to respond, address requests to the general manager, KCSB, University of California, Santa Barbara.

[KCSB.4.29.70 Allen/Rashidi interviewed, Proposal for Black & Chicano Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, KCSB Audiotape Collection 1969-1970, SBHC Mss 58, Department of Special Collections, UC Santa Barbara Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.]

Posted on

Cindy Lopez

cindyl@as.ucsb.edu

“I am Cindy Lopez and for the last…well since 2006, I’ve been the assistant director for Budget & Finance.”

When did you first come to UCSB?

Sure, I came here in the year 2000, started in Late January of 2000 and I came into the AS Administration office, the same office but I started as just an administrative assistant and I would cut checks and just learned a little about Associated Students because I haven’t been at UCSB before.  Then in 2002, I went downstairs to the AS Ticket Office and that year we changed a lot stuff down there. They used to have a lot of all the notes and all the readers, sold in publications and then the Ticket Office only sold tickets. So what they did was combine everything else into the Cashier’s Office so that there was no money over there in the publications office because they do not have a secure room, so its not locked in the back. They were not supposed to have cash there. They were just adhering to University standards so they changed a lot of stuff. So I went down there to start running the ticket office and I did that for a few years and in early 2006, I came up here in the current position that I have.

Wonderful, that’s great! So you’ve been at UCSB for a while, what is your favorite aspect of UCSB?

I think being on a college campus because when I started here, my kids were in 9th and 10th grade, so I lived up in the Santa Ynez Valley, kind of in a small area not a lot of diversity or anything, so I came down here and I actually got an idea, first of all, of what college life is  because my kids were going to be going to college at some point and its been a long time since I’ve been in college. So, it’s kept me in touch with what college students are thinking because college students kind of get involved with everything that is going on in the world and its just a really great age because they leave home and then they come back and then they kind of devote their own ideas instead of growing up, or their parents ideas and its  an independent thing. I just being around college age students, I find. They keep me young, keep me interested…in world events, in national events, more so than if at home, taking kids to soccer practice or whatever you’re doing.

Same thing, I think that UCSB is a great campus for ideas and people just learning to be who they are.  I understand that you manage the finances and budgets for Associated Students, if you could maybe elaborate a little more about your job.

Alright, so basically, I do manage the budget, so that goes all the way from format. I help the students formulate the budget, Finance and Business committee in the Senate. They formulate the budget for the next Senate school year and to manage it, I have to make sure…we have so many different student fees and they all have to be kept separate. I have to make sure that they each have their own separate account and that they’re all the right charges go to the right account so keeping that sorted out making sure what’s allocated to each different area is put into the right accounts. Then the whole financial aspect of Ekta makes sure that everybody who’s spending money by using the requisitions for AS or following policy and making sure we have all the correct backup and we’re following AS policy and university policy. I also I have to bring the fees over from the university so when students pay they pay in the BARC office, so we have a university account all the money’s there so I’m in charge of keeping track of it bringing the money over into the our AS accounts because AS has our own bank accounts which is unusual on campus everyone else has to have all their money in the university accounts. so we manage our own which is very unusual for on campus, so I keep track of that.

Is there a reason why it’s a separate bank account rather than with the university?

We’re allowed to, so other departments would like to but they won’t let them because we’re student government in regental policy, we are  an exception, so we’re allowed to have some financial autonomy.

“Is there any message or anything that you would to send out to the students and UCSB?”

I understand that as students, we pay student fees and that it parts of it goes to different departments, but I know that you know a certain amount goes to AS, how do you think student fees have changed over the years: increase, decrease and just overall how they’ve changed over the years?

When I first started, I’m trying to think how much the student fees were they were $56 per student that was it, now they’re in the hundreds. I know we get 210 per student, but with the fact that return to aid and all the other fees on top I’m sure it’s 300 or 400 something per student, back then it was 56 so we got a lot less money, we had a lot fewer boards and committees we had a lot less going on, we had fewer staff, we were actually more in a financial bind where we had to be super careful about everything that was spent and students really didn’t get to do as much because we didn’t have the funds for it. Then it was still pretty tight and then in 2006, the students passed The Students Initiative in a special election that added a hundred dollars per student to the already $56, so it became one hundred and fifty six dollars that that came in, what that did is it increased our base fee so that’s the undesignated portion that comes in that amount has to pay for everything. In AS, that does not have a lock in. That initiative also increased a lot of the lock-ins. So they were getting more money to do more stuff and when we had a larger base fee we could pay for all of our budgets that didn’t have lock-ins much easier, we didn’t have to recharge the lock ins like we used to do just to have funds for our infrastructure, so that was a huge difference and all of a sudden we were flush with money, so when you have a lot of money you don’t quite know what to do with it right at first so it took a couple years to really grow into that and start using the money. That’s when the bottom line was formed that’s when SIRRC, Student Initiated Recruitment Retention Committee was formed and I’m probably leaving out a whole bunch more, but we started up the AS Media Center we took over those offices. When students had ideas and let’s do this, we had funds to develop new programs and then AS expanded, widely, quickly and then about 2008-2009 all of a sudden we started to feel a crunch because we started using all our funds and we felt  we didn’t have any money again because everybody got used to spending a lot of money on a lot of different things. We had students going to conferences which they hadn’t been able to do before, we had a newspaper, we had just so much more going on, so then little by little we’ve added a few more lock-ins, the Bottom Line, we added an AS Food Bank, that got a lock in, Worms got their own lock-in, the Compost area, Queer Commission got a lock-in. I know there’s more that I’m not thinking of but we added enough lock-in so that money was locked in, so now we are fairly flush with our budget now. I feel we have a lot of money but I know at some point we’ll expand our programs to where maybe we feel we won’t again.

So what types of organizations didn’t previously didn’t have a lock-in fee?

So Finance and Business Committee used to be called Finance Board, never had its own lock-in, so whatever was left over when we allocated all the money in the budget to everybody, whatever was left over, that was what they had to give out to student groups: all the OSL organizations. Some years, it was a lot. At some point, one year it was down to ten thousand dollars or something which isn’t very much money to give out for all the events that the students want to put on. So they got their own lock-in, so that they always had three to four hundred thousand dollars to give out to student groups. That was really big, it was really good for all of the OSL groups because they knew there would be money here if they came and asked for money for an event, that was really helpful. Again, Program Board has increased their lock-in so they can do more programming. They’ve started doing Halloween and Deltopia concerts during those times of the year to keep students out of IV, that was kind of requested by the Chancellor, so they started doing more. As I said, Worms, the Composting Program, USSA, so that’s a lobbying lock-in for students to lobby for what students all over the country need. Queer Commission, AS Food bank, CFF Community Financial Fund was a new lock in once we got the lock-in and then we had to create the program because it wasn’t really specified in the lock-in except that it was a community financial fund, so we created that program once the lock-in had passed and I know there’s some more, I think we did the bike circle over there by KCSB be that was a lock-in only for three years to fund that because it was a really dangerous area the way it was, there was a lot of bike accidents so AS funded the new circle that’s there, it’s much safer. A lot of groups have gotten increases, Legal Resource Center has gotten an increase, I can’t think of all the rest of them now I know there’s more, the Bottom Line they got their own lock-in after a while after they’ve been around for a while too.

I know you’ve been around UCSB for a while and you’ve seen a lot go on,  I’m wondering if you have any experience with student activism or what types of things have you seen in the past?

In fact, I remember Mahader, the very first year I was here, he was the AS President. So we knew who he was and he came back and as a Special Project Coordinator, that’s when they started doing Living History which was awesome. But I do remember one year for quite a few years in the early 2000s, our students were protesting the raising tuition every year it seemed, the tuition went up it went up astronomically at that time so our students of course we’re fighting against that and they had a couple huge protests, I remember one day they went out and actually closed the freeway, Highway 217 and they marched all the way down and just walked in middle of the freeway.

Oh, they did that?

Well not legally yeah, this is stuff that when they decide to do it work we try to advise him not to if it’s something that puts them in extreme danger. I think one year and I wasn’t here then, they wanted to shut down 101 as a protest. They advise, please don’t do that, the 217 was caught on a day where not a lot of people were coming to and from campus it might have been  one of those Monday holidays or something so there wasn’t a lot of traffic, so they got through and got it shutdown and then I think the police came and kind of helped them shut it down just to make things safer. I remember that, that was a big one. There’s been a lot of them throughout the years it’s hard to remember them all. A lot of stuff that’s been going on in the nation oftentimes the students here will also you know in solidarity have  some kind of a rally or something going on it’s been a lot of really great speakers here I haven’t heard too many of them, but I’ve heard a few, but yeah and then there’s some times there’s some really controversial speakers that will come in that the students protest against. In fact the interesting part is, I remember when David Horowitz came and spoke here and he had just taken out an ad in the Daily Nexus, a full-page ad basically saying that all Muslims were terrorists. So the students first were upset that the Daily Nexus even took the ad then when they were here and so then the College Republicans brought him here and they came to ask for funds from Finance and Business Committee, who didn’t want to give them funds, but there’s a regental policy on viewpoint neutrality that you can’t refuse to give someone funds just because you don’t agree with their speaker that’s if the free speech thing, so they ended up funding them partially. The Muslim Student Association was very upset they came to Senate and were very upset about that that was a huge thing that was one of my first years I worked with Finance and Business Committee and at that time I kind of agreed with the students who said you know we don’t fund hate speech and the Muslim students actually felt they weren’t safe with him on campus. But there’s that fine line about are you really safe are you not safe, did he say I’m gonna come shoot you or is he just talk about you in a way that you don’t feel safe so that was the first time? I remembered that I know that happened again last couple of years when they brought Milo I think came and spoke here and then there was oh who was the last I can’t remember his name, but he spoke against the Black Lives Matter movement so that and again, Finance and Business Committee can’t say we’re not going to fund you because we don’t agree with you, so they’d fund them and then the students would get upset at them because they funded it. That’s always very contentious and we’ve had quite a few years where our students want to divest from any companies that work with companies working in Israel so we have a big divestment meeting, usually it’s at the Senate meeting we often have over 200 students coming in to speak for and against and then they vote. At the end of the night we’ve never voted completely to divest, most of the campuses haven’t, but it’s a huge very controversial thing and usually the Senate meeting will go all night long.

Yeah, I’ve seen the articles and the photos of people just speaking to 2 a.m.

All night. I came back one time and I come in at 7:30 I came in and the meeting was still going. It is a fairly active campus. I went one time with a group of students up to UC Berkeley. We all took a bus all night long, got there at 6:00 in the morning to protest at a regents meeting and pretty sure it was because of tuition being raised. So our students went up there and there’s actually more UCSB students in the protest and than there were Berkeley students at the time, so UCSB at that point was very active in all of that. We had a couple students who really got everybody going and organized these trips to go up and do a protest yeah there’s been a lot of stuff going on and I’m sure I’m not barely remembering very much of it.

It’s different as a staff person because you’re watching it happen and we often will attend it you know to support our students who are doing the protest, but I remember one when our students, they block off the road and then the police come and then one time somebody got arrested, the students sat around the car so that the police car couldn’t drive off, so you say you’re worried about the students, you know you’re a UC employee. You’re supposed to try to protect them on the other hand, also they have a right to be protesting what they’re protesting. It’s kind of an odd position to be in.

AS operations, how has it evolved over the years within finances and budgeting? Has it always been a committee or how is it changed?

Well we’ve had different student leadership, sometimes our leadership is more conservative, sometimes it’s more liberal and it kind of just goes that way. I think right now because we do have a lot of funds to give out our students are able to be more active and they’re able to participate in a lot of different things which is great so regardless of the leadership there’s just opportunities for students to become part of a group and to kind of steer it in whatever direction they want to go in. There’s just a lot of opportunity to do stuff there’s opportunity to go on trips to go to conferences. We’ve had students go to Norway for the Power Summit, they’re really fascinating things. Our students have gone to Washington DC, most years to do lobbying with their representatives there. They’ve often lobby in Sacramento, there’s all kinds. Now we have the alternative break that happens with CAB twice a year where they’ll go. I think they just came back from Florida helping out with where the last hurricane was so it’s a very wide variety of stuff that students can become involved in. Which it’s really there’s more and more opportunities as we keep expanding to get involved and we employ 300 students, 3 to 400 students we give them employment and they’re doing  work in the AS Food Bank or they’re working in the ticket office or they’re working in the media center or stuff where they’re actually learning really good job skills.

And again you know having money gives an opportunity to students depending on what they want to do with it and again we’re a student-run organization so staff people we kind of we might have some ideas and feed some ideas to students but mostly it’s students coming up with their own ideas of you know, you know Community Financial Fund was a student idea. They went for a lock-in and got it and then as staff we kind of help develop the program with a student board. So it’s always in collaboration with the student ideas and stuff to do that.

I’m kind of curious about aspect of  funding new organizations, is it just  they just go to the finance committee or has the process changed?

It’s pretty much been the same throughout the only thing that really changes is how much money finance and business committee has to give out. You know, back when I started they didn’t have much they give a couple hundred dollars to groups here and there to go do their funding. Now they have it they have a lot of money three to four hundred thousand every year to give out, granted there’s a lot of requests for funds but they’re able to give out money every year to different groups for there things. We went through a time when s didn’t have much money to give out all of our student groups are spending a lot of time doing fundraising selling food at the MCC and there was so much fundraising activity to try and fund enough money for all of their events because we didn’t have the money to give out and then there’s less fundraising when we have more money to give out, I notice that a lot.

Is there any message or anything that you would to send out to the students and UCSB?

Just get involved, get involved and it seems to me that there’s a place not even necessarily in AS, but in some organization on campus where they would find a lot to do and I think it’s really important to do some of those extra activities rather than just go to class. You can learn a lot in class, but sometimes it’s those outside activities that you can do that really enrich your whole time here because you’ll get your degree, but sometimes all the activities really make the experience so much better and you just learn so much more different kind of knowledge.

Interviewed by: Christine Hoang

Posted on

Denise Rinaldi

deniser@ucsb.edu

“My name is Denise Rinaldi, I’ve had several different positions over the last 27 years with UCSB. Currently I am back here as a retiree being rehired as the Assistant Director for Special Projects, but before that for a lot of my career I was the Assistant Director for Human Resources and External Communication.”

When did you first come to UCSB?

Well, I came as a student. I actually transferred here as a student, I started University of Colorado in Boulder for two and a half years and then transferred here and took a year off school to establish residency in California and then many several many years later I came back on staff. I started in a 50% time job down in the main office helping with the legal code in 1990 and legal code at that time was sort of a mess, that this the Senate had computers were still fairly new there we had a little Mac network, but this Senate had written something like a hundred bills what was called Legislative Council then and sometimes I still slipped and call it  Legislative Council had written something like a hundred bills that it was March when I started and not a single one of them had been entered into the legal code and every piece of legal code wasn’t its own separate document. But of course like I say we had those little tiny Mac SEs, these little tiny boxes, you probably have never seen one. It was definitely before your time, computing and networking was all very new. Email didn’t exist at that time so it was, everything was kind of hardwired, but that’s what I started.

What is your favorite aspect of UCSB?

My favorite part of Associated Students is even though I’ve been in a lot of different positions over the years, it’s always new. It’s always interesting. The students always bring fresh ideas or sometimes it’s about the same issues if you go back into the historical files, but they don’t give up. There’s new technology, there’s new things happening in the world and students are always the ones who are on top of that. So one of the things I love about being here is it keeps me in touch with what’s going on in the world and what matters to students and it’s always just new and different.  There’s never a dull moment, so the job itself at Associated Students is always, you can come in and plan your gonna get this done today and something happens and in fact it’s sort of thrown out the window and you’re doing something else, which you know, can be frustrating too I suppose, but it’s really it’s just so it’s flexible it’s a it’s a great environment, we have great colleagues. UCSB in general, I think well one of course it’s a beautiful, beautiful college campus and I’ve seen various college campuses but it is really beautiful. And there is a lot of different stuff going on. There’s a lot of arts offerings, theater offerings, dance offerings… lectures. There’s so much happening on the campus in this beautiful place and Associated Students is part of the Division of Student Affairs and I think Student Affairs is really always tried to find ways within the limitations of their budget and people to really make things work for us to do to help students as much as possible.  And it’s not always perfect, there’s certainly a lot of need out there that’s not met I’m sure, but I think that there is a lot also that is offered and so that really is one of the exciting things I think about this campus. It’s wonderful and my time here in Associated Students I’ve always felt really supported as a staff person, there’s been, I’ve been through about four different executive directors, but the culture for staff has been supportive of that work-life balance and you don’t always find that everywhere. Even though, the campus in other departments and on campus, I think but there has always been support there for people who have different needs and I think what happens too, is in the staff I know for myself because I’ve given so much. I’m willing to do stuff that is outside my working hours or jump in and try to help with different projects. I want to give the best to this department because that it’s a wonderful place to work, I love the students and the department is supportive of me. So I wanted to be around and be supportive too.

 

Elaborate a little bit more, so I understand you recently retired but you worked at UCSB and  have had association with UCSB for about 30 years overall, how was your experience within AS?

I started at AS in 1990 as it was really more of an office assistant position, trying to help straighten out the main office. We were over in the other part of the building at that time, where the food bank is…the upstairs office is there. It was a 50% time position, but it was a career position and I took that position partly because I’m also a ballet teacher and so I was able to have steady income that was an interesting job.  And then go teach ballet everyday and that job grew and I learned and I got a lot of professional development and I went from being down in the main office where you’re really with a lot of students and their government and you’re hearing students talking about the issues and dealing with the legal code and policies and all that. To becoming more of an assistant for this executive director at the time, and then that executive director left. Then and I became more into helping with human resources, so my job really grew and changed over the years, very slowly, but one of the things that’s great about this department is that there’s a lot of professional development. The other thing is, of course though moving in that way, I started off really in there with students all the time and so it was very close to whatever was happening with students and over the years my job shifted, so that I am not as in touch with what’s happening now. I don’t know the students as well, but I’m really impressed with how things continue to grow and how I think the students are on our campus affect student issues a lot and from what I hear, our campus is represented really well at the Regent meetings up in Berkeley or down in wherever they are,  people go and they support it. They fight for the issues and all of that for this stuff. So over 30 years, the campus has grown a lot… a lot of different buildings. one time I drove way over by the dance building and over there, when the first the buildings first went up and I went wait a minute, Where am I? I don’t recognize this part of campus because I hadn’t been there yet and so there’s a lot of parking lots that have been turned into buildings now. A lot of buildings and an increase in student population, which sort of comes with its own problems when the growth happens and infrastructure is not always in place. But wow, it’s that, it’s the same and yet there’s a lot of growth and change. Certain governmental issues remain the same, you know, different election kinds of things,watching the elections over the years has been interesting.

“Is there any message that you’d like to just give to UCSB students or any final remarks?”

I think it’s amazing that you witnessed the growth and to see UCSB change. Over the years, what have you had any experienced or what is your experience with like student activism?

I think the students here today yes are that what are the most active governmental groups in the UC system and I’ve only experienced one Regents meeting here at the campus that were I was really aware of what was going on anyway and so that was very interesting… how there were only a few students let into that and how it was controlled. The Regents controlled the environment, which I can understand on one hand, but also it gives you the feeling is that people who are deeply affected by what they’re talking about couldn’t cut out. But our students and all of the boards and committees we have do so much work on that behalf. I mean, yes there’s the Senate, which used to be Legislative Council and representation on UCSA and USSA, those things I think have been really important. Our campuses always supported them, but the work of boards and committees is huge and I think that when you think what Student Lobby has done and training young people for the future and you think that the number of students that have left here and gone to Washington D.C. and worked there and been part of USSA are part of other lobbying efforts, are part of of US politics, the marches that happen every year, things like Take Back the Night that happens every year and there’s those standard things that have been become traditional voices over the years and then there’s new things. In the last presidential election, the marches that happened were really empowering and I think that was really actually one of the first times I personally went to the marches and the protests and listened to what the students… followed along with that and I found it really empowering. I think our students are very they’re in touch with what’s going on, they research things, they speak up and there’s a history of it on this campus and every time that the students make progress here it reflects out to the other campuses and then to our students… go to Washington, it reflects out. I mean I know there’s students from other campuses everywhere, but I’ve just seen a lot. I’m thinking about Bill in 2006, I forget his last name at the moment, but he was really instrumental in passing the students initiative which was the fee that raised Associated Students’ budget so dramatically and it was a coalition of lots of different departments and Boards and Committees on campus and and that was just one example of what he did and how he was just very instrumental in it. He wasn’t the only one of course about building those coalitions and students do that all the time.  I know he ended up in Washington. So yes we have a history of activism and I think we have a video on it too. When we hire new staff members: Aaron Jones, who used to be our Assistant Director for Community, he would take people on a tour. It wasn’t just a tour of the campus, it was a little tour about AS spaces and what AS has done and AS activism. When students took over Campbell Hall and why those planters are out there…you could get some many people right in front of them. When you go through North Hall,l the information about the Black Studies and that all of that is visually represented there, so things like that are there. I love that Aaron has such a history himself. He as a student, as an activist, and as a support. I’m sure you’ll interview him at some time if you already haven’t. But yeah, when I first arrived, Mike Stowers was President. I think Aaron was shortly after that, not too many years after. So it was it’s kind of fun to see him too and how he grew from a Student President, student here and left right away for a while, did all sorts of remarkable things, came back got a PhD, and was here back as a staff member supporting students for so long. He’s the director of the EOP, so still doing good work for students, but in a different capacity. He’s just a wealth of information.

 

From what I understand, I know you essentially created the Associated Students legal code or took a huge part in it?

Making it cohesive, let’s say.

 

When did the legal code begin, or when did you begin working on it?

The legal code began in early early years when the Association was first created and so I mean, you could go back at history… I know we went did some research all the way back to the 30s and then in the 50s when it became an official university campus and so it’s been there in some form, but when I started, it was the first time it was more than a regular typed form, it was actually on a computer for the first time and the typed forms, like I said it was really kind of a just a series of documents. It wasn’t a code, it was a series of documents and students changed it by a similar process to what we had now, but then, in that document it wasn’t changed and a new document was put in. So when I came along, it was then finally ‘Here’s in the Constitution on the computer’ and that hasn’t changed terribly much, although it is has changed a little and then ‘Here’s all the legal code’ and it wasn’t all everything in its own document, in different sections. So one of the first things I did when I was here was to take all of the legislation.. the hundred bills or more they had written and put them into each, make the changes that they had wanted me to make and then I put the whole legal code into one book, so it became one document. So you can reference it. I mean in part of that it’s just the advent of computers so that you could more easily compile things so students create the legal code, but staff really kind of make sure that everything that is changed by students then gets into that document and maintain that document in the integrity of that document, so that it is an accurate picture of what students have wanted every year and I think I have some documents some of the legal codes going back to like 1987.

 

How did you end up taking up the project of compiling everything in the legal code?

That happened because there were students in the main office and only students. The staff was quite a bit smaller then and so students wrote the legislation that were on Leg council and then left it to students in the main office to try to do something with it and of course students who are working there: schooling is coming first and they are here 10 hours a week maybe. Maybe somebody’s here on Monday for a couple hours and the scheduling… So students have finally decided they did need help with one just even supervising and scheduling and hiring people for the main office… and to shepherd all that and and to keep the lead to maintain the legal code and so I was fortunate enough to get that first job. It was a brand new newly created job to help with that process the first main thing was the legal code and then the students in the main office.  So that I happen to be looking for a part-time job at the time because I was a ballet teacher and who would have known that I’d be here for 30 years and become full-time eventually and all of that so yes it was a need that the students identified and went out and hired. I kept that in my job description for many many years until it was finally turned over to a few other people, but every time that we somebody left that was doing the legal code it would find its way back to me. We’d hire someone I’d be training that person, but Holly’s got it down there, she’s really good.

 

How long did it take to get the legal code to how it is now?

It changes weekly actually, but well I could tell you that when I first started which was the beginning of March and it took me working practically most of my time almost probably fifteen hours a week. It took me till July, that was in 1990, to get it in order and get all those bills in and then there were more being done. Of course I was doing some other things at the time as well, it probably depends on the number of changes that the students make. But I would say weekly, because there’s more to it than just putting the input into the code itself. The student writes a bill and then and it says I want to change this section and then the Senate has to table it and it goes through the internal committee and then the Senate votes on it, so then that person has to make sure they get the right final copy of the bill and it is put into a copy that pasted into a bill form and there’s a log we keep that I started a hundred years ago that they’re still doing, so it’s logged what the bill number was, what the name of it was, who the authors are, it was tabled which date, then passed or not passed, or tabled again and any notes about it, was it amended or was it not, so there’s this log and then you go through the log and you have to pull up each bill and say ok this was passed on this date and it says ‘Changed section four on Student Lobby to these people and you go through and literally make the changes– strike out that person and ideally a bill is written so it just shows strike out, what they want removed, and italics about what they want added, but it’s not always that clear because sometimes they’ll miss something so you do have to look to make sure your language of the bill is matching what’s already in the legal code and then sometimes things happen like in September, Section Ten got amended and that’s been put into the legal code and then come February somebody amends that section again, but they’re using an old version of the legal code. They forget to get the newest version from someone, so then it’s not matching and you have to fare out their intentions or talk to them and make sure that’s what this new bill like, did they mean to take out that section or not or leave out or is it just that they were using the old version? So there’s some detective work there and sometimes it’s not always clear, but it’s getting better and better, especially with technology. They have more things in Google Drive that students can see right in front of them. But it’s not always just that straightforward and then the other thing that the person who’s doing the legal code does is…a student will change a section not realizing that affects another section. Especially there may be something understand in policies and so they not matching and I can’t change the legal code, only the students can.  The job of that person is then to say you’ve got this section you’ve just done, but it’s conflicting with this. This part takes precedent or not, so you might want to consider rewriting this or changing this part, so it doesn’t conflict, so then you go through all of that. Because the legal code, here’s the Constitution: like I said there’s not been very many changes to the Constitution over the years because first, it’s a broad document and secondly, the student population votes on it. So if somebody wants to change that document they have to present it to the student body at elections. Then and it’s not meant to be changed frequently, it’s like the Constitution of the United States, you don’t have to change it every week. But the bylaws are and the standard policies, those can be changed frequently. Those are supposed to be a guideline for this board and committee and how they do it and maybe they’re changing how they’re doing things, so they’re updating it but some of the policies that is housed in Associated Students operates. Here are your policies that you’re going to live by and in the financial policies: how you’re gonna spend money, how you’re going to allocate it, who gets to allocate it, what your process is that you have to go through to request money from something, the rules about ‘you’re not gonna spend that money on alcohol’, and because they are student funds right? You have to be good stewards, students might debate more or more and then there’s laws around certain things, you have to be content-neutral. Students cannot say, ‘Oh I’m gonna fund this person, but not this person because I like that person,’ you have to be equitable and neutral and all of that stuff, so there’s a lot that goes into the policy because this policy that has to fit in with campus policy, which has to fit in with free gentle policy, state law, federal law…

 

Just seeing the legal code, I guess I didn’t think about how much effort and how many people it took to truly develop it how it is now.  

Not too many years ago when Jonathan Abboud was President, they redid the whole thing and that’s when this came about. He reorganized it, well him and the Senate at that time and Jonathan is the one that did a pretty that was a pretty big overhaul of legal code, the biggest one that I’d ever seen in many years. I like this particular graphic because it really shows what they were thinking and how the branches of government fit together and how the boards and committees fits in there, the creation of units, and that units were a new thing and of course there are still some holes in the legal code where they took what existed, put it all in units. I was the advisor of the creative media unit, it was a new thing and so at first it was just in there and then you had to write how’s it going to operate and get that in there and now it’s going and now it’s updated, but there’s probably still a few things in the legal code that never got all of their policies and procedures and stuff in there.

 

At some point, the Living History Project will have to go through this process, once it’s more established.

That’s part of what the internal committee should be doing it also – that’s a huge job, it’s not something that could happen all at once and now that they have Holly, that’s part of what she’ll be doing. As she’s putting things into legal code, she looks at it carefully and she will be the person who has the whole thing with her the most and she’ll be making notes and suggestions to different committees that ‘You might want to update this or…’ and of course the boards and committees, they look at their own parts, but it’s the other policies that somebody has to kind of keep their eye on.

 

I’m aware AS has numerous BCUs, how were they created or how did they start?

I probably can’t tell you the very first creation of it, although you because you can find some of them like Community Affairs Board with different names if you look in the historical archives at Special Projects, there’s stuff way back there and so they grow out of a need. For example, there was three new ones created last year: the Transfer Student one, there’s a Gaucho Health one and I forget the third one, but there were three new groups, so either a student has an interest in a particular area and starts to have a group and they start to meet and then it grows in interest and the students identify a need, like more support for transfer students and so they decide that they want to create a group and meet and see what how can students help other students who are transferring and how can they be involved in the transfer policies of the campus and then that grows and it becomes formalized and so okay now we know if we want to identify goals and what kind of money is that going to take and then you have to go through the AS budget process and get funds allocated and so after that you’ve got funds so now you can do some of these projects and then this students about to graduate so hopefully they pass on all the information to younger students coming up, those students then come into the leadership roles so committee either grows and blossoms because there is interest and and a need or it fades away because there is no longer an interest and a need or it’s being done by someone else. There are various committees over the years, AS Program Board being a really strong committee that’s been around for a long time, so there is Community Affairs Board… there’s probably 20 committees that have been here since I first started and before and then others that have disappeared and new ones started like Creative Media Unit was a new one as well and so that unit is only probably five years old and I could remember well the first year it had one person that wanted to have these goals and the next year we had three or four people and they were trying to make the guidelines for how it would operate and then pretty soon it had a real committee and real weekly meetings and submitting minutes to the Senate and getting a real budget and producing events and having projects and so now it’s thriving because there was a need and there was an interest and they were able to grow it. Hopefully the Living History Project is similar.

 

We are in the process of aiming to be a BCU, but still developing a little bit more. Actually this quarter, starting to get outside interest, more student participation.

We had a project at one time, there was a small staff member group there were three or four of us who went to Special Collections and we looked through all the boxes there. When you start to read some of the issues, you got students are still working on that today: tuition hikes and more fees and the cost of trying to get your degree here, but there’s lots of things like that and then there’s lots of other different things that’s just fascinating and you can learn a lot about what was done before. History is, I’ve always found it fascinating myself. I think the activism part of the Living History Project is really good to capture.

As a closing remark, is there any message that you’d like to just give to UCSB students or any final remarks?

I really think just keeping up the work, keeping up the activism, the voice, because it’s very easy to either get discouraged, especially and I’m discouraged right now in this particular political climate we’re in, but it will roll around. Well it’s discouraging sometimes and you’ve got a lot to do and  there’s so much, but our voices matter and students are the ones that I really admire because I see students really thoughtful about their voices and it’s important and students make the difference. They do make a difference. That’s how a lot of stuff has come up about on campus so I just would say students don’t give it up. Keep going.

Interviewed by: Christine Hoang

Skip to content