Power Plant Critics Blast Meeting Set on Holy Day : Energy: But UCLA won’t agree to a delay, saying the project is urgently needed.

Opponents of a proposed power plant for the UCLA campus are urging the University of California regents to reschedule their September meeting now set for the Jewish high holy day of Rosh Hashanah so that community members who are Jewish may be heard.

Alternately, members of community groups have called upon UCLA to voluntarily withdraw the matter from the Sept. 20-21 meeting agenda out of sensitivity to the community. The meeting will be held at UCLA.

Despite lobbying by state elected officials and two major Jewish organizations, the Board of Regents and UCLA have so far refused to change the meeting date or postpone consideration of the giant “chiller-cogenerator.”

Allen Solomon, UCLA vice chancellor for administration, said the university is not willing to delay the matter because of the urgent need to move the proposed project forward. It was delayed in July in part to allow community input, he said, adding, “This plant will be built.”

He noted that the November regents meeting is set for San Francisco, which also would diminish participation by Southern Californians.

However, Laura Lake, representing Friends of Westwood and UCLA Watch, said it will be far easier to get Jewish opponents of the plant to fly to San Francisco than it will be to get them to a hearing on the high holy day.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown on Sept. 19 and continues until sunset Sept. 21. It is marked by daylong religious ceremonies and many Jews abstain from work and other secular activities.

University officials say the plant, to be fueled by natural gas and landfill gas, is urgently needed to provide energy for the campus. Opponents of the project are concerned about its size, the pollution it would generate and its 125-foot smokestacks.

They also allege that UCLA is in a hurry to avoid new air quality guidelines that will go into effect soon after the meeting.

UCLA’s position is that it should not be held responsible for a meeting set by the regents, however unfortunate the timing. Carlotta Mellon, assistant vice chancellor for community and governmental relations, said UCLA officials are “very regretful that the meeting has to occur on Rosh Hashanah. We try to be sensitive,” she said.

According to Solomon, “There are opportunities for people who are not going to testify in person (because they) . . . to have someone read their statements into the record.”

But state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) do not agree that the meeting must be held on the Jewish New Year.

“They should not be meeting on Rosh Hashanah,” Rosenthal said in a telephone interview. “It’s disrespectful.”

Hayden wrote to UC President David Gardner and the regents asking them to set a date on which “no group is forced to disregard its religious creed in order to attend.”

Both the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation Council and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith also sent letters asking that the meeting not conflict with a major Jewish holiday.