UC Urged to Borrow $50 Million for Seismic Work

The University of California should borrow up to $50 million for quick seismic safety work on its nine campuses, UC President David P. Gardner said Thursday.

The money would be in addition to the estimated $30 million the university needs to repair damage from last month’s earthquake at the Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Berkeley campuses.

UC hopes to receive the $30 million soon from state and federal sources but cannot count on getting all the other money needed for preventive work sooner than the next 10 to 15 years, according to Gardner. So the university must either issue bonds or take out bank loans for the $50 million, he said.

“We should do the work now instead of waiting 10 or 15 years,” Gardner told the Board of Regents. He said the loans could be repaid through the nearly $6 million a year that UC receives from the federal government for running energy and nuclear weapons laboratories.

The $50 million would be used to shore up the most vulnerable UC buildings and is only a fraction of the money required to strengthen all campus structures, UC officials said.

In other business, a UC regents committee approved increases in student education and registration fees of 4.7% for California residents and 2.5% for out-of-staters next year. Excluding housing, food and books, a UC education would cost in-staters $1,703 and non-Californians $7,619 under the proposal.

The increase for out-of-staters would be small compared to the double-digit hikes of recent previous years. UC officials fear that too big a jump next fall would slow the flow of talented graduate students to California from around the nation and world. Many other state universities charge non-residents about $900 less in annual tuition than UC does, according to a recent survey.

The full Board of Regents is expected to adopt those increases today along with a request to the state for $2.37 billion in operating funds for 1990-91. That would be 10% more than the current budget and, regents said, would help accommodate expected enrollment growth of about 3,050, bringing the UC student body to 162,000.

A representative of the UC Student Assn. said his group would not oppose the fee increases. “While any increase in the cost of education poses a burden for students and their families, these proposals are reasonable,” John Leyman, a UC Riverside senior, told the regents.

The regents also heard a report from Karen McNally, director of the Richter Seismology Laboratory at UC Santa Cruz. The Oct. 17 earthquake, centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains, appeared to follow warning signs that McNally said may help scientists predict big temblors.

Showing similarities to other earthquakes around the world, the 7.1 magnitude quake last month was preceded by a 5.2 quake in August along the same section of the San Andreas Fault, another moderate temblor in the area in June, 1988, and seven prior years of relative seismic quiet in the region, according to McNally.

She urged UC and state leaders to increase funds for seismic monitoring stations to help warn Californians that a big earthquake might occur within one to three years after warning signs are detected.

McNally cautioned the regents not to build any proposed new campus near an earthquake fault. That argument might bolster bids for a UC campus by Central Valley communities, most of which are far from major fault lines.