April 29 — May 10, 2016 Campus Briefs
UC Admissions Lenient for Non-Residents
The University of California system has been admitting out-of-state students with lower test scores and eligibility than California residents, a state audit shows.
SFGate reported that 16,000 non-residents, about 29 percent of the total admitted students,, have been accepted into the UC system with test scores and grades lower than the median of admitted Californians, according to the state audit. Non-residents pay triple the tuition and fees as state residents.
UC President Janet Napolitano said the audit results are unfounded and reduction in state funding has constrained resident admittance, the SFGate reported. State auditors claim UC’s inability to quell their own spending has caused the systemic pattern of out-of-state favorability.
Guns Allowed on Campus in Sacramento-Area School District
The superintendent of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District has confirmed that authorized personnel are concealing handguns on school campuses “to keep the school safe,” the SFGate reported.
These just-in-case guns are carried by district authorized employees, but superintendent Deborah Bettencourt declined to offer specifics on how many guns were on campus, which schools carry them and where they are kept, citing safety concerns, according to SFGate.
Guns on campus has been a policy for six years in the Cordova school district and has surprised parents and neighboring school districts that the practice was even legal. Although a state law restricts concealed weapon-permit holders from carrying firearms on school campuses, a superintendent can override that written authorization, reported SFGate.
Bettencourt did confirm that no teachers carried sidearms, and no one was allowed to carry guns during the school day.
Fresno County’s Kingsburg Joint Union High School District is the only other school district in the state known to allow guns on campus at all and allows staff to carry concealed guns.
Tentative Deal Struck to Prevent Eviction of 99-year-old San Francisco Woman
A tentative court ruling could prevent the eviction of a 99-year-old woman from her apartment, and the proposal would allow the senior to stay, pay her legal fees for the proceedings, but make an apology to the owners and sign approval for the other units for conversion into condominiums.
Iris Canada has lived in an apartment on 670 Page Street in the Lower Haight since the 1950s and was granted a lifetime lease at $700 a month in 2005, but attorneys for the landowners allege that Canada has been living with family members since 2012, and has neglected maintenance for the apartment, the San Francisco Examiner reported.
Superior Court Judge James Patterson served a tentative ruling on April 19 that would allow Canada to remain living in the apartment but requires the tenant to pay the landlord’s attorney fees, a sum that could exceed $100,000, the Examiner reported.
Pending Canada’s agreement, attorneys negotiated a possible deal that would waive the legal fees in return for Canada’s signature on paperwork that would allow the owners to convert other units into condominiums plus require Canada’s official apology for what the landlord’s attorneys called “years of aggressive legal tactics on Canada’s behalf,” The Examiner reported. It was unclear whether Canada would agree to the proposal.
Few Arrests, Heaps of Trash at 4/20
Thousands flocked to Golden Gate Park’s Hippie Hill for the annual weed party on April 20, leaving behind mounds of trash for City workers to pick up the next morning.
Police Spokesman Officer Carlos Manfredi told SFGate that relatively few arrests were made for an event that attracted an estimated 15,000 attendees from around the Bay Area. Two people were arrested for felony warrants, and five others were arrested for misdemeanors such as public intoxication and resisting arrest.
However, wet and rotten garbage permeated the air Thursday morning as a few dozen workers set to clean up the chronic mess that seems be left behind after every smoke-out celebration.
“The rats and raccoon had no reason to bother anyone last night. There was plenty of food,” 52-year-old Kent Sergent, a homeless man who slept in the park, told SFGate on April 21. “There was trash littered everywhere.”