Lew Persons – Dome 5
DOME START UP STORY
Winter of ‘72(?) Mike Nolan, my mentor at the Housing Office, introduced me to what became the Dome Project. Mike sold me on the basis that the long term goal was multiple coop living units of ~15 students. There was already a group of interested students, in fact they were on their second group of students, the first group having been discouraged by the university’s stalling. I was still general manager at the Tercero Coop when Mike took me to this meeting.
I was the new kid at my first (Jan) meeting of an established group of interested folks, so I hung back to try to understand the group, their project goal, and generally what was going on. (I had a gig at the Coop, and wasn’t thinking of joining the group.) I think(?) Dave Wheeler was at the meeting, Ron was answering questions re the what and how, and was basically trying to get the students fired up to push the admin to make a decision. His pitch was that he had already invested way too much energy in this, and they were going nowhere. Ron was going to withdraw and move on if they didn’t get approval to start this season. After listening to the back and forth, I chimed in with you (students) have to stop waiting for the university to do this for you. They have made it clear they don’t want student built housing, so they are doing the admin shuffle, stalling until the latest crop of problem students graduates or moves on. You are slaves waiting to be freed. Get off your butts and take charge. Although Ron and I had never met, we were singing from the same hymnal… go take your success, or you are done…
As the meeting broke up, a few folks turned on me, the outside agitator, for an actual plan to back up my rhetoric. “You need to get on their radar.” I suggested that a small group go over to Mrak Hall and ask for a meeting/hearing with Chancellor Meyer. The next morning I went with a group of 6 or 8 to the top floor of Mrak Hall. The top floor was set up with a conference room in the center, surrounded by administrative offices along the perimeter. Chancellor Meyer’s and vice-chancellor Elmer Learn’s shared secretary sat at a desk at the far narrow end of the hall in front of their adjoining offices. With our group milling around the secretary’s desk, we asked for a one hour sit down with Chancellor Meyer. The secretary was very friendly, and we were all chatting amiably, as she referred to the paper calendar propped up on her desk. I maneuvered over and read the calendar. A meeting was set up with Meyer for the following week. Mission accomplished.
As we departed, I pulled the group into the large conference room. We sat down, and I shared what I gleaned from the secretary’s calendar. Vice-Chancellor Elmer Learn had a meeting with potential donors for the proposed new UCD med school at 10 AM tomorrow, in this conference room. I proposed that we arrive at 9:30, lower the projector screen, set up our projector for a slide show, and ask for 10 minutes to explain our project. We would be very organized and respectful, as opposed to noisy rowdy protesters. Prepared to give our presentation, but expecting not to.
To say Elmer Learn and his group of high rollers was surprised would be an understatement. The dozen or so donors were amused and intrigued. Elmer was shaken but polite, thanked us for our time, and agreed to personally meet with us later that week to hear us out, but they didn’t have time for our presentation this morning… We thanked him, and were up and out in less than 2 minutes.
The purpose of the ambush wasn’t to show off our project. It was to let Elmer know we knew where he lived, we knew how to get through their defenses, that we were through being trifled with. Deal with us.
The next day we received a call that assistant-vice chancellor Ed Spafford (operations) would meet with us that morning for a “preliminary” meeting. We met with Ed, agreed on the sequence of admin hurdles we would need to overcome to get project approval. Then we unfolded stage 2 of the strategy. We told Ed we were there to help, so we would have someone sit in his outer office, who would personally courier docs to whomever the next wrung on the admin ladder was, and provide the same personal service to the next wrung until we were successful in our Quest. We weren’t going away…
By summer we were on the Regents agenda. As a married law student, Ellery was deemed the most presentable (non-threatening) representative we had. Plus, Ellery was passionate and articulate, if voluble. Success! Regents included our project as a line item on the budget, with one caveat. We had to agree that the domes could be torn down after 7 years to make room for the new UCD Med School. This became a real sticking point in the negotiations. My response was to laugh and say there was no way they would be able to tear down the domes. This wasn’t the old coffee house. There would be a community of students living in them…So we accepted the deal, believing they couldn’t enforce it.
Somewhere along this journey, I jumped the shark, becoming a Domie. I can’t remember who went with me to Mrak Hall, or the meeting with Spafford. Any body wanna fess up? Although I do have an image of Charlie’s face smiling at me that day. Don’t think Ellery was involved in this phase… He was our hero with the Regents.
lew
