UC Regents Stifle Dissent, Member Says : Education: Wilson appointee expresses complaints about university’s governing board in a candid, scathing letter. He says it too readily goes along with the system’s administrators.

In an unusually candid--and sometimes scathing--analysis, a newly appointed University of California regent has criticized his colleagues for stifling dissent, being too eager to follow the lead of university administrators and for possibly violating the state’s open meeting law when they voted two months ago in closed session to give UC hospital executives hefty pay raises.

Ward Connerly, a Sacramento land-use consultant appointed to the Board of Regents last March by Gov. Pete Wilson, aired his complaints in a five-page letter addressed to his colleagues and dated Dec. 21. The Times obtained a copy of the letter on Wednesday.

Connerly stopped short of calling the prestigious board a rubber stamp for university administrators.

But he depicted a governmental body where dissent is discouraged, where some regents are made uncomfortable--or are too timid--to voice opposing views, and where the internal pressure is to go along with how administrators are running the $9-billion university system.

“It is this view, in my opinion, which allows the public to believe that the regents fell asleep at the wheel during the Gardner era,” Connerly wrote, referring in part to the board’s controversial closed-door decision to give former UC President David Pierpont Gardner a $737,000 severance package in 1992.

Restoring public confidence, Connerly wrote, requires “effective governance.” But he said that means the regents have to do more than vote “to hire a president and voting ‘aye’ on every issue placed before us by the president. . . . If we subscribe to this view, there is no reason for us to meet.”

Connerly wrote that he was “uncomfortable” with the “severe time restraints” the regents put on students, faculty members and others at their meetings while administrators control the agenda and enjoy unlimited access. “They dine with us, they confer with us during the intervals between meetings and they have virtually unlimited opportunities to make their case at regents’ meetings,” he wrote.

Connerly suggested that the regents set “standards of accountability” for the administrators and treat them as one of several “constituents” in the UC family.

Reached in his Sacramento office, Connerly said he decided to unburden himself because of the regent’s November meeting, in which they voted 13 to 5 in closed session to give raises to 13 top university hospital executives, already among the highest paid UC administrators. The decision aroused protests because other hospital employees have been forced to accept furloughs and the regents are considering another round of student fee hikes.

Connerly, who voted against the raises, said he was particularly irked by remarks made by fellow Regent Dean A. Watkins of Palo Alto, who reportedly told board members during a closed-door session that voting against the raises would amount to a “no confidence” vote against President Jack W. Peltason.

“That is not the first time that has been said,” Connerly said. “I think it went right to the heart of the culture of the board.”

Connerly said he believed it was improper for the board to discuss the raises in executive session rather than in public. In his letter, Connerly accused the board of violating the “spirit, if not the letter,” of the state’s Open Meeting Law.

Michael Lassiter, a university spokesman, said late Wednesday that the closed session was appropriate because regents were being asked to consider a personnel matter--specific salaries for specific hospital executives. But Connerly said in his letter that the discussion dealt with pay classifications as well, a subject that is normally discussed in public.

Lassiter also said that UC President Peltason disagrees with Connerly’s suggestion that board members consider university administrators as another “constituency” to be heard while making tough decisions. He said Peltason believes the administration and regents are to act as a “team.”

“It’s not like a City Council, or a legislative body that holds a hearing and makes a decision,” Lassiter said about board meetings. “We’re running an institution that is much more complex.”

However, Connerly warned the board that it is in a “fragile stage” of transition where some regents may want to be more aggressive in holding the administration accountable.

“We can either recognize this fact and guide the outcome of what we are to become or we can ignore what is occurring and run the risk of coming unraveled, fighting in public, and exchanging memos and letters which vent our frustrations with each other,” he wrote.