CHE CAFE RESPONSE TO AS/GSA DECISIONS

LA JOLLA –  Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Following the UCSD Associated Students (AS) and Graduate Students Association (GSA) proposals to close the C.H.E. Cafe building for a period of 18 months and hold C.H.E. events at other UCSD locations:

The C.H.E. Collective has reached a consensus to release the following statement:

The C.H.E. Cafe Collective is opposed to any solution that includes the Collective leaving the C.H.E. Cafe Building.  To leave the building would be tantamount to forfeiting the property. The UC San Diego administration has a history of refusing to allow organizations, such as the Craft Center, to re-claim buildings after they have left. We also feel the reasoning behind the request to leave the building is problematic. There is not a need to vacate. No safety issues with the building have been properly demonstrated, and student support of the C.H.E. Cafe Collective is strong, and continues to grow with each meeting and event that is being held at the C.H.E. Cafe building.

The AS and GSA proposals were drafted by committees that were created to decide on what the student body response would be to UCSD Administration' s attempts to evict the C.H.E. Cafe Collective from the C.H.E. Cafe Building.   The C.H.E. Cafe Collective would like to  recognize the time and energy that both committees have spent in reviewing the information that was presented to them.

The C.H.E. Collective will continue to work with all concerned parties especially the AS and the GSA to stop the eviction of the C.H.E.

In Solidarity,

The C.H.E. Cafe Collective

update

Dear CHE Cafe supporters,

We haven't sent you an update on the Save the CHE Cafe campaign since the November

17, 2014 benefit co-sponsored by the CHE Cafe Support Network (CCSN) and Tiger!

Tiger! No good reason or excuse. Yes, we (CCSN and CHE Cafe Collective) have been

more than busy with the fight here. But you are all a part of it and we still need your help

and we do need to keep you informed.


A good article just came out, which fills in a lot of the news you may have missed.

It is published by attorney Andrea Carter in the San Diego Free Press at link.

Returning to November and the updates, some of which are not in the above article. The

Tiger!Tiger! benefit drew out more than 300 people of all ages and was a good financial

success.

On November 20, 2014 CHE Cafe attorney Bryan Pease filed our appeal of the

November 4, 2014 eviction ruling (unlawful detainer). The appeal is pending.

During the week before the Thanksgiving holiday, students occupied Peterson Hall at

UCSD to Stop Tuition Hikes and Save the CHE. It started Monday, 11/24. It followed the

start of another UC sit-in against the new tuition hikes at UC Santa Cruz. Several other

UC campuses had sit-ins during this week. It was not a highly disruptive target building,

but very centrally located for campus foot traffic and it was a great organizing tool, a

magnet of attention and meetings around the clock for most of a week. See more about it

at

link

link

link

On December 2, 2014 international journalist Arun Gupta published an article largely

about the CHE, at link.

On December 15, 2014 an Artists' Boycott of UCSD was announced. We need your help

to spread the word and get more people from all of the arts communities to come out in

public support of the boycott. The newest artist to state he is joining is San Diego's Jazz

Guitar legend, Maestro Jaime Valle! Other artists who have pledged to not perform at

UCSD and to help spread the boycott, include

Ian MacKaye-Dischord Records/ The Evens/ Fugazi/ Minor Threat/ Teen Idles/

Embrace/ Egg Hunt/ Skewbald/ Grand Union/ Pailhead, Bob Beyerle (Barley)-Vinyl

Communications Records/Titwrench/Neighborhood Watch,

Rob Crow-Pinback, Collin Corrigan-Rockfish,

Spinach Williams-The Last Barfighter, Justin Pearson-The Locust/All Leather/Retox/

Head Wound City, Mar Moreno-Diatribe/Outlaw Bastards, John 'Swami' Reis-Drive Like

Jehu/Night Marchers/Rocket From The Crypt/Pitchfork, Jason Soares-Physics,

Zack De La Rocha-Rage Against The Machine,

Mauro Coddelupi-Raw Power (Italy),

Brandon Cruz-Dr Know, Dan Faughdner-Sledding With Tigers/Grim Luck,

Anachronism, Days Of Light and Gravity, Glow and the Dark, Filthy Flamingos, Atticus

and the Boo Radleys, Ghetto Blaster, Death Eyes, Ben Ziff-DiNigunim/Thieves Lineage,

Man vs. Man, Trash Axis, Cryptic Languages, Age of Collapse,

Jose Palafox-Struggle/Swing Kids/Bread & Cicuits/Yaphet Kotto/Baader Brains,

Armistice, Gregg Paiva-XHostageX/YourEnemy, Eskera, Jello Biafra-Alternative

Tentacles Records/Guantanamo School of Medicine/Dead Kennedys/LARD, Per

Thunnel-Sex Dwarf/Raped Teenagers (Sweden), Troy Kokinis-New Ruin/ Twin Hero,

Mark Wilson-The Mob (UK)...

Find out about the Artists' Boycott of UCSD and contact the organizers at link.

In early January 2015 our research uncovered the fact that the California Fire Code

section (903.2.1.2) mentioned in the Campus Fire Marshal's 2012 site inspection report

does not apply at all to our type of building! (see sections 903.2 and 1103.5) It is the

UC system-wide policy, as adopted by the UC Office of the President, that the state Fire

Code is the policy of the University (see link) . UCSD is bound by the Fire

Code. The state code was amended to follow the 2003 amendment of the International

Code Council's model code. That amendment requires NEW buildings similar to

the C.H.E. Cafe facility, and which have occupancy loads of 100 people or more, to

have an automatic fire sprinkler system. The change was that the occupancy load was

previously set at 300 people or more. (See link). It is this new code change which the Campus Fire Marshal cited in his

2012 report. He failed to explain that elsewhere in the new code sections, adopted at the

same time, all EXISTING buildings of the type of the C.H.E. Cafe facility are expressly

exempted from any requirement of retrofitting to install these automatic fire sprinkler

systems. This goes a long way toward explaining why the Fire Marshal never ordered

the C.H.E. Cafe to close and why he said that a new sprinkler system would be "strongly

recommended" and why he never said it is required by law. It is not. [See California

Fire Code Chapters 9 and 11 at link]

What we do know now, at least, is that there is absolutely no legal basis in the Fire Code

for requiring that the C.H.E. Cafe facility be shut down. There is no legal and industry

expert consensus that any urgent safety problem exists if a building of our type does not

have an automatic sprinkler system -- providing that all other Code requirements for fire

extinguishers, exits, exit signage, etc., are met. BUT the UCSD administration (and their

parrots in the AS and GSA councils) are STILL acting as though fire "safety" is a true

issue.

Also in early January 2015, the UCSD administration issued a Facility Renovation

Feasibility report. It claimed there was so much wrong with the building that it would

be MORE COST EFFECTIVE to raze it to the ground and to replace it, which would

ONLY cost between 2.5 and 3.5 MILLION dollars! Anybody who has ever seen the

simple wood construction of the CHE building would know immediately that the true

maintenance and repairs costs cannot possibly be more than a few hundred thousand

dollars, if that much.

The CCSN response to this latest escalation of the UCSD administration's terroristic

tactics has been to step up our work on getting the building designated as an historic

cultural site. Money has been allocated to move ahead on this process.

The Save the CHE Cafe campaign continues. The collective meetings are still in the CHE

Cafe every Monday night at 7 pm. Come if you can.